


Peter Ransom and the Stolen Truth

by PippaLovesTunaBrick (SevralShips)



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Aliases, Alternate Universe - Character Swap, Benzaiten and Sarah die, Canon Trans Character, Canonical Character Death, Case Fic, Explicit Sexual Content, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Handcuffs, Heist, M/M, Mutual Pining, My First Work in This Fandom, Nonbinary Juno Steel, Oh and Mag is also dead, Original Character(s), Other, POV Alternating, POV First Person, Private Eye Peter Nureyev, Purple Prose, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Thief Juno Steel, Trans Peter Nureyev, Truth Serum, but like very inconsistent purple prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:08:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 56,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28781007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SevralShips/pseuds/PippaLovesTunaBrick
Summary: I knew those wrists, — I’d seen them in handcuffs before — I knew the hands that went with them. Broad, deep-lined palms, short strong fingers that flexed anxiously as I looked on, occasionally flashing a glimpse of the pale scars across the dark knuckles. Yes, only one set of hands in all the galaxy were as perfectly suited to trail a tender caress as they were to throw a punch. And I would have recognized them anywhere.--Detective Peter Ransom has eked out a low-profile life for himself in Hyperion City, a galaxy away from the teenage revolutionary he used to be. When the HCPD bring him in to consult on a murder case, he finds himself unexpectedly reunited with Juno Steel, the thief who has been haunting his thoughts since he double-crossed him and stole away after one life-changing kiss.
Relationships: Benzaiten Steel & Juno Steel, Peter Nureyev & Juno Steel, Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 10
Kudos: 72





	1. Peter Ransom

**Author's Note:**

> I like to make my life difficult so I made my first attempt at writing Junoverse a 50k+ swap AU where I had to be a little creative about characterization. I don't really think anything is too wildly ooc, but I'm using the AU excuse! I've got this whole fic basically written but I'll be staggering posting a little bit! I'm new to this fandom and would loveeee feedback and new friends!
> 
> TW for this chapter:  
> discussion of murder/death  
> reference to animal testing  
> brief description of a mortal wound

It has been brought to my attention that this tale has a certain symmetry to it, seeing as it both began, continued, and ended with a pair of handcuffs. 

The first pair of handcuffs belonged to me, but the second were standard issue, the Safe Cells model that dangled from the belt of every simpering stooge and glowering gorilla in the employ of the HCPD. The burnished chrome of them caught the glare of the interrogation room bulb, bright contrast against the dark skin of the wrists they had captured. They were unusually graceful wrists, mobile and almost incongruous in their elegance. I knew those wrists, — I’d seen them in handcuffs before — I knew the hands that went with them. Broad, deep-lined palms, short strong fingers that flexed anxiously as I looked on, occasionally flashing a glimpse of the pale scars across the dark knuckles. Yes, only one set of hands in all the galaxy were as perfectly suited to trail a tender caress as they were to throw a punch. And I would have recognized them anywhere.

“Juno Steel.” I stated, in an airy tone, as if I'd said it a million times, as if it were positively banal. In truth, when I had encountered the lady before, I had called him by a different name, a false and trivial name. In all honesty, I had never spoken his true name publicly, but only in broken off moans within the breath-damp privacy of my pillow in some of my very weakest moments of desire. I would be damned a thousand times, however, — indeed I would march straight into the radiation and red sands of the Martian desert — before I would expose that most pitiful fact to him.

At the sound of my voice, he startled violently enough that he might have upended his chair had it not been conveniently bolted to the floor. His hands curled together tight in a display of nerves that caused a pang in my heart — it was a tell I knew he would have concealed given the choice — and he twisted in his seat, “Detective Ransom,” he attempted a light tone to match my own, but he did not quite manage it. His voice — that  _ damn _ voice that I had by turns tried to cling to in memory and tried to forget — was hoarse, strained, a match for the haunted look in his blue eyes. His lips bent into an unconvincing smirk, “Good to see they've called in Hyperion City's finest for me.”

The shock of seeing him, after all those months of wondering despite myself if we would meet again, had caused me to lose track of the business that had brought me to the precinct in the first place. As a matter of course, I had only as much contact with what passed for lawmen in Hyperion City as was absolutely necessitated by my current work. A youth spent in fear of the unmerciful retribution of a sky that might reduce me to a scorch-mark on the pavement had left me with a hearty distrust of authority, and the HCPD was corrupt and inept enough to deserve every inch of my wariness. But to ensure the allowed continuance of my existence here — moderately comfortable at best and un-enthralling as it was — I cooperated with them. When my cases pointed me to an indefensible criminal, I would sometimes alert them, and when a case left them scratching their empty heads, they would sometimes alert me.

As it happened, both had occurred in the case of Juno Steel. Months ago, I had handed him over to them, only for him to slip deftly between the maladroit fingers of the law within minutes. And now, he was back, and they were offering him to me.

_ Not him,  _ I reminded myself sternly,  _ they are offering you his  _ case _ , you fool, and you had best focus on it. _

So I did just that, taking hold of myself and folding all my burning questions about the handcuffed lady before me away for later consideration, “You flatter me,” I demurred as I found my legs again and crossed to the table, taking a seat across from Steel, beside a cop who finally looked up from the case file on his comms pad. I addressed him, “You failed to mention that Mr. Steel was involved when we spoke, Officer Falco.”

Puck Falco was one of the few cops I held in any esteem at all. He was jaded, terse, and impolite, but that still left him head and shoulders above most of the crooks in blue. He was only marginally corrupt, but that was the best you could hope to find protecting and serving Hyperion City’s streets. He presently gave me an unimpressed look, “It’s called confidentiality, Ransom.”

I inclined my head and laughed, “Indeed, even criminals have their dignity.”

Falco looked back at his comms, "I'm sending you the case file," his mouth flattened with distaste, “See how much dignity you think he deserves once you see what he did.”

“If you already know who did what , you are hardly in need of an investigator such as myself.” I pointed out, laughing again as if charmed by my own wit, expertly concealing my growing discomfort.

Across the table, Juno Steel chuckled, little more than an exhale, but enough to tug my attention back to him. His expression was stormy, the curve of his mouth bitter with a dark private joke. I realized that he looked deeply weary and his eyes were rimmed with red, and it troubled me disproportionately to think of the force of nature that was Juno Steel brought to tears. Those eyes were studying my face, as if he could tell my flippant humor was an act. Perhaps he could… Now there was a disturbing thought. I was grateful for the beep of my comms, for the reason to divert my gaze that it presented. That gratitude was snuffed out immediately as I skimmed crime scene photos, statements, and evidence inventories.

In case I have not made myself quite clear, although I found myself intrigued by, drawn to, and rather fascinated by Juno Steel, I did not trust him. For one thing, he was a thief. And though I had not stolen so much as a cred's worth in nearly five years, I would perhaps always be a thief at heart, and I knew better than most how little honor there truly was amongst thieves. It was not merely the fact of his trade that I distrusted, however, but past experience. 

When I had met him previously, he had come to me as an activist against animal testing, a sheltered young heiress with deep pockets by the name of Fauna Lovejoy. I had suspected it was an alias, but his moral outrage had convinced me. He had been so  _ incensed _ by his cause that he had been luminous with it. How could I doubt it, when I had watched that passion make him act recklessly on what  _ should _ have been a stealthy reconnaissance mission, taking unnecessary risks left and right, liberating scores of frightened and modified captive lab animals, wielding a blaster with breath-taking prowess that belied more than a bored heiress’ hobby? Well, I should have doubted it. I had been a fool, such an utter fool, blind to the glaringly obvious cracks in his facade. 

In my defense, the vast majority of the cases that landed in my lap in my detective work could barely be called mysteries at all, the truth so easy to tease out that I often found myself bored half to death and almost wishing that a client would refuse to pay and give me an excuse to  _ take  _ what I was owed instead. Juno — or _Fauna_ , rather — had made my job interesting for the first time in so very long, and if I was being quite honest, my suspicion had only heightened my curiosity. Was it that blazing moral passion that had intoxicated me, or the possibility that it was all a ruse? Regardless, by day’s end, I had been duped, hoodwinked, double-crossed, and deserted. Though months had passed since the Stingkitty labs debacle, neither my trust nor my ego had recovered.

So, no, I did not trust Juno Steel, but neither did I believe him capable of murdering his family in cold blood. Perhaps it was a weakness in me, but I couldn’t believe that all of Fauna’s moral outrage had been an act. Frankly, I did not believe that Juno Steel had the talent for acting to fake that so well. And more importantly, the file Falco had shown me corroborated my instinct on the matter.

“Well?” Falco prompted gruffly, after some minutes had passed.

“I'm afraid I am missing something.” I confessed, lowering my comms and pushing my glasses up the bridge of my nose as I looked at the officer beside me.

“What?” Falco's bushy grey eyebrows furrowed.

“I am here responding to a call regarding a double murder,” I said, raising my eyebrows, “But all of the evidence you have shared with me points rather conclusively to a murder-suicide.”

“Finally!” The word burst out of Juno Steel like a volcano I had once seen erupt in the Cerberus Province, raw force and fiery relief, but joyless all the same.

“Shut up, thief,” Falco spat, before answering my question, "It's gotta be murder, Ransom. He's a known criminal, and even if he  _ wasn't _ , what kind of man stands there and does nothing while—”

“You might want to take your own advice, Officer Falco,” I said curtly, “And shut up.”

“ _ Excuse me? _ ”

“You called me to get my perspective on this case,” I said wearily. I could feel the weight of Steel's intent gaze but I refused to give in and meet it, “And that is what I am trying to give you. The blaster that killed both of the deceased was registered to Sarah Steel and in her hand, and I fail to see how that is cause to have Juno here cuffed and questioned as though the blood was on his hands,” Falco's nose wrinkled in annoyance and he opened his mouth to argue, but I went on, “Now, if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to be left alone with my client.”

“Your client?” Falco sneered, “He ain't the one footing the bill, Ransom, we—”

“I could,” Juno Steel interrupted, at the same instant I said, “Call it pro bono.” I glanced at him just long enough to see a flicker of pleased surprise.

“Fine, fine,” Falco grumbled, getting up and walking to the door, “Ten minutes.” He barked before leaving the room.

He took with him my excuse for avoiding looking directly at Steel, and so I looked. He was as dashing as I remembered, if rather worse for wear at the present moment. And he had not killed those people, I could tell as much merely from the look on his face. I knew the face of a killer; I saw one in the mirror each morning as I lined my eyes and styled my hair, wishing for an excuse to wear it differently, for a case that might require me to wear a new alias. I was so tired of being Detective Ransom and it was growing more and more difficult to keep that frustration tucked away. I shoved it away all the same. 

The look on Juno's face was not that of a killer, but that of a victim, that of a sole survivor who hadn't yet begun to wrap his head around what he had lost. I knew that look, too. I had seen it on my own features too, once all those years ago. Inexplicably, however, it ached more to see Juno’s loss than to remember my own.

“Listen, I didn't do it,” he said at once, rushed and unironic, as if he'd suffocate if he held the words in his throat a moment longer, “I-I would never,” his eyes welled with tears as he shook his head, “Ben, my  _ brother,  _ I—”

“I believe you, Juno.” I assured him, and without my permission my tone slipped out of professionalism and into something softer.

He heaved a sigh through his nose as he shut his eyes and bowed his head slightly, “Thank you,” he said, peered at me with eyes swimming in emotion, “Peter, thank you.”

My heart faltered in my chest at the unguarded look in his eyes, at the sound of my given name on his tongue. I often regretted keeping my first name when I'd chosen this alias upon arrival on Mars. I'd been younger then, though, alone and directionless and twisted inwards, and I hadn't had the strength to throw myself away completely. I should have. I cleared my throat and looked down at my comms, at the crime scene diagram, at the figure of Juno's late brother sprawled on the floor. He inexplicably was clad in some sort of leotard, and the pastel green of it was gruesome against the blackened viscera the blaster had made of his guts. The hand curled lifelessly on the stained carpet was so familiar, as identical to Juno’s hand as the dead man’s face was to Juno’s face. The only difference was the lack of scars. “Oh, there's no need to thank me," I deflected with another forced laugh "I am simply doing my job.”

Juno Steel snorted, “Like-like hell you are,” he said, “Your job's  _ catching  _ the bad guys, not defending them.”

I looked back at him, “No, Juno,” I said, with a slight shake of my head, “I do not trade in moral judgment. My job is to uncover the truth, regardless of who it serves.” And yes, I knew what a damned hypocrite I was, but Juno didn't. His eyes scanned my face for a few seconds before he shrugged slightly, allowing that distinction. Silence fell between us, but we couldn't afford it. Reaching for something to say, I commented, “I did not know you have roots on Mars.”

“ _ Had, _ ” Juno Steel corrected, grief visibly weighing on the slope of his broad shoulders, “I  _ had _ roots on Mars. They're… gone now.”

“Because of…” I glanced at the name on my comms, “Sarah Steel?" Juno's features hardened, but he nodded, “Your… sister? Mother? Sister-in-law?”

Juno's nostrils flared, hate in his eyes, for this Sarah or himself I could not tell, “Mother.” he bit out.

“Gracious, me…” I muttered to myself, the pieces of the puzzle falling into place. Mere hours ago, Juno had witnessed his mother slay his brother and herself and my heart ached for him. I might not trust him or consider him a friend, but that was not a scenario I would wish upon anyone, “Juno,” I said, “My condolences.”

Juno Steel bristled at the kindness, and when a tear escaped his eye, he rubbed it roughly on his shoulder, “I don't need your pity, Ransom,” he grumbled, “Just prove I didn't do it.”

“Oh, don't worry about that,” I waved it off, “They have no evidence at all. They can't legally keep you here longer than six hours without reasonable suspicion, which I'm sure they were counting on me to provide.”

“I've been here since…” Juno shook his head, “1600? 1700?”

I sucked my teeth, tutting, “It's well past 0100.” I watched the thief's brow crumple, as he tried to reckon with the lost hours. Raw pain flashed in his eyes and it dawned on me that he was likely wrestling with how many hours had passed since the fatal blasts were fired.

“Time's up.” Falco announced from the doorway, and I watched the shutters close over Juno Steel's emotions. It hurt oddly in my chest to see the mask of nonchalance pulled back into place.

“Indeed it is,” I sat up straight, pinning Falco with a withering look over the rim of my glasses, “I understand you've held my client in custody overnight without reasonable suspicion.”

“He's a  _ known  _ criminal!” Falco sputtered again. 

“Well, you'll have to prove his other crimes, then _ , _ ” I said, “In the meantime, I suggest you unlock those handcuffs, because in this case I must assure you he was a  _ victim _ , and I needn't tell you what dreadful form it is to mistake a grieving victim for a suspect.”

Falco glared at me and it dawned on me that he was  _ embarrassed _ , and then he was shuffling over and stooping behind Juno to free his wrists. Deep down in my gut, something animal and selfish felt unbidden disappointment at seeing the cuffs come off — they suited him well, which was only fitting for a thief, especially one so pretty. I stamped the thought down as Juno stretched his arms over his head, twisting his hands and popping his knuckles. It was unlike me to be so  _ distracted _ , but Juno Steel had that effect on me.

He stood up eagerly, and held out an expectant hand to Falco who frowned sourly before retrieving a simleather holster belt with two blasters from a bin and returning them to their owner. Juno nodded to him with a sardonic smile as he slung the belt on beneath his jacket, “We're leaving now.” He announced as he threaded the buckle.

Falco rolled his eyes, “Thanks for nothing, Ransom.” He said.

“Good night, officer.” I offered him my most charming parting smile as I got to my feet and hurried after Juno.

“C'mon, Peter,” he urged, and hearing my name again in his lowered voice left me no choice but to do as he bid, “Before they change their minds 'bout letting me walk outta here.”

We emerged onto the sidewalk, and the neon and sour smell of Hyperion’s streets engulfed us. The dome was dark and a mist of smoggy rain was falling, turning the street into a mirror and blurring the edges of the cars and the overflowing trashcans, the addicts arguing on the corner, and the highscrapers that loomed all around us. Juno turned to the left and took two steps before coming to an abrupt halt, his breath hitching audibly. He bowed his head and his fists clenched at his sides, “Come,” I said, without a moment’s hesitation, gently leading him by the elbow, “We can go to my office.”

We walked in silence. My office was a mess since my last secretary had quit, and I hadn’t gotten around to hiring a replacement yet. It hardly seemed worth the hassle, when I did everything alone anyway. Well, I doubted Juno would care about the mess either way. I spent much of the walk wondering if it was strange that I still had not let go of Juno Steel’s arm. I can only guess at what was happening within the lady’s head, but he was rather absorbed in his thoughts. When we had worked together before, he had been full of snarky quips and the occasional flirtatious leading question, but for all I knew, that had been a part of his role as Fauna Lovejoy. For some reason, it hurt to consider that I might not really know what Juno Steel was like at all.

I withdrew my keycard from my waistcoat pocket and it was only as I swiped it and the lock chirped its affirmative green that I realized I had walked not to my office building, but to my home. I must have been quite absorbed in my thoughts as well. I opened my mouth to apologize to Juno, but if he noticed the mistake, he did not appear to care. We walked up the stairs to my apartment, I unlocked the door and ushered him within.

As I locked the door, Juno seemed to wake up behind me, “Oh,” he said. He was looking around the slightly cluttered living room area, and when I flicked on the lamp the light caught in the tiny rain droplets that clung to his dark curls, like so many stars. I swallowed the thought and then his eyes met mine, one eyebrow arching, “I love what you’ve done with the place.” He remarked dryly.

The place was, of course, exactly as it had been the last time he’d been there. Same glass coffee table, carpeted with paper files. Same Rhean tapestry on the wall. Same infrequently used monitor across from the same dark red couch and chair. Juno’s fingertips trailed across the top of the chairback, as if stroking a fond memory. I bit my tongue against the echo of how our one kiss — in that very chair — had tasted; like possibility, like the rest of my life, like the Brahmese pewterfruit brandy I’d poured for him. It was a weakness, the only piece of Brahma I still allowed myself in my life on Mars, but on Juno Steel’s lying tongue it had actually tasted like home for the first time.

All these months, and I still hadn’t managed to wash that taste out.

“It is nothing grand,” I said, when I was sure my voice would not give me away, “But it is home.” Was it?

Juno’s hand fell away from the chair, disappearing into the pocket of the long coat he wore, “Yeah…” he said, eyes drifting sightlessly across the wall tapestry’s shimmering threads.

“I still find it hard to believe you are from Mars.” I said around a laugh that I hoped might put at least one of us more at ease, selfishly not wanting him to disappear into his head again.

“From Hyperion City,” Juno Steel corrected, with a challenge flashing in his eyes, “I grew up in Oldtown.”

“You hide it well.” I praised honestly. I never would have guessed that the moralistic and spoiled Fauna Lovejoy had been raised in Hyperion City’s dodgiest district. Looking now at what I believed to be the real Juno Steel, though, the sharp edge to his smile, defiant... the way he shouldered fresh grief and horror as though he was used to it being his lot in life, it made sense, “I see it now, though.” I admitted.

Juno shrugged, “You can take the lady out of the sewers,” he said, his tone wry, glancing past the imitation Earthsilk drapes up skywards, “But even out among all those stars, you can't quite scrub the sewer out of the lady.”

Something behind my ribs melted in sympathy. I understood more than he could ever know. How often had I felt much the same thing, that no matter how long I dwelt here, no matter how well I learned to play the part of the disarmingly genial private investigator Peter Ransom, at my core I would never be much more than the desperate and cagey underfed orphan Mag had found scrounging on the streets of Brahma? Juno looked back at me over his shoulder, and his eyes shrewdly read my face, “I have a feeling you know what I mean.” he stated.

“Yes, well,” I said, “We are all a product of our past in some fashion. I understand your meaning, even if I do not hail from Oldtown myself.”

Juno turned to me and shook his head, “No way you’re from Mars, Peter,” he observed with quiet confidence as he closed the distance between us in a couple of strides. My breath quickened as he looked me up and down, lifting his chin to look up at my face, “You couldn’t be.” he breathed, and the note of awe in his voice almost undid me, unraveled me down to the last precious secret I had.

I was stronger than that, though. I had been taken in by his pretty face once before and I did not permit myself to make the same mistakes twice. I took a step back, placing some necessary distance between myself and the alluring thief, “You must be utterly spent after the dreadful day you’ve had, Juno,” I said, words nearly tripping over themselves, “I’m afraid I haven’t a second bed but you’re welcome to rest here,” I gestured at the couch and hurried to my bedroom, “I’ll find you something to wear.”

“Thanks, Peter.” he called after me, and I sighed. Perhaps if I was lucky, he would slip away in the night. 

Perhaps if I was luckier, he would stay.


	2. Juno Steel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First Juno POV chapter! This one is pretty heavy because it directly deals with Ben's final moments, so be warned.
> 
> TW for this chapter:  
> implied substance abuse  
> referenced child abuse  
> gun/blaster violence  
> reference to animal testing/animal abuse/animal death

_ “What the hell are you doing here?”  _

_ I stiffened in the doorway at that, knowing right away that something was wrong. Damn it, Benten, would it have  _ killed _ you to give her some warning? Sarah loved surprises about as much as sewer rabbits loved to eat their vegetables. Which is to say she couldn’t stand them. She never much had cared for them, and had only lost her taste for them more over the years, especially when the surprise in question was her outlaw disappointment of a son at the door. I plastered on a smile, “Hi, Ma.” I greeted. _

_ “Don’t you ‘hi, Ma’ me!” Sarah sneered, eyeing me with all the distaste of a rabbit faced with a salad. She looked worse than the last time I’d seen her. Her hair needed a wash badly and the bottle by her elbow was about one swig away from empty, “You think you can just come and go as you please?” she challenged. _

_ “Well, I am twenty-seven,” I couldn’t help but point out, “It would be a little weird if I had a curfew.” _

_ “Twenty-seven, yeah, and you still haven’t learned to shut that smart mouth of yours.” Sarah glared at me and way down deep, I felt that old cringe of dread. Because the look in her eyes was a bad one, bleary and bright with more than just liquor. I’d learned a long time ago to clock it from a mile away. It was the look that came before words drenched in vitriol, before plates smashing loud against walls, before hands painting new bruises onto skin. _

_ “Benten!” I called, eager to get my brother and get out of there before Sarah flew off the handle, “Get your ass down here!” _

_ “Cool your jets, bro!” Ben called from down the hall and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel some measure of relief just hearing the sound of his voice, “The show isn’t for over an hour!” _

_ “Benzaiten!” I hollered again, and Sarah’s eyes rolled. _

_ “Shut up,” she growled, “You waltz in here like you own the place — like you didn’t dump us for your fancy space adventures,” she punctuated the term with a condescending flutter of her left hand, “The first chance you got — and now you’re gonna stand there and give me a goddamn  _ headache _?” _

_ “Might be the booze that’s bothering your head...” I grumbled, but she just went on, getting to her feet. _

_ “That’s all you’ve ever been,  _ Juno, _ ” she said my name as if it tasted foul, as if she hadn’t been the one to pluck it out of some book about old Earth mythology all those years ago, “A stubborn goddamn headache.” _

_ “Ben!” I yelled again, impatient to make a run for it. _

_ “I said  _ shut up! _ ” Sarah flew to her feet, throwing up her hands, and my heart stopped in my chest at the sight of the blaster in her hand. And then it sped up, thundering against my ribs. Sarah must have followed my eyes because she laughed and goaded, “What, Juno, like my new toy?” _

_ It wasn’t new — it was an old blaster, before the innovation of the Stun setting — and it most definitely was not a toy. I had to get that thing out of her hand before she realized how fun it would be to pull a trigger, “Yeah,” I said, as evenly as I could, “It’s… really cool. Can I see it?” _

_ Sarah scowled, “So you can break it? So you can ruin it like you ruined  _ everything _ for us?” _

_ “Whoa,” Benten said, skidding into the room. He had gushed to me over comms about how some bigwig designer, Charmeuse Bombyx, was designing the costumes for the dancers and I had pretended to care who the hell that was. I remembered the name, sure, but I had never put much stock in celebrity. But whoever they were, they’d done a good job, and Ben looked beautiful in a tea green leotard with a flattering frill of sequins and tulle, his strong legs looking most at home in tights, as they always had. Even despite the danger, I felt a swell of pride.  _

_ He’d worked so hard to get picked up by one of Hyperion City’s real dance companies, Whirl, and I was so proud that he’d never given up on the dream that had called him since we were tiny. I couldn’t wait to see him dance in his first big-time show tonight, even if I had not been entirely truthful with him about it being the only reason I had left the Outer Rim behind and hustled back to Mars. I was a liar, and I wasn’t worth much, and I didn’t have some higher goddamn ‘artistic calling’ like he did, but I always felt the most convinced that there had to be some salvageable good in me when I was face-to-face with my twin brother, even when that face — so similar to my own — was currently looking at me with disbelief and frustration, “Really, Juno?” he asked in a lowered voice, “You’ve been here five minutes and she’s already got the blaster out?” _

_ “She had it when I got here!” I hissed, “And since when has she even  _ had _ a blaster?” _

_ Benzaiten shrugged, too nonchalant, too willing to forgive, “It’s been an experimental couple of months for her.”  _

_ I never should have stayed away so long, I never should have left him alone with her. My throat constricted around the guilt, making my voice tight, “Experimental—?” _

_ “Stop whispering, little monsters!” she barked and after years of conditioning, it shut us both up quick, “Do you think I’m  _ deaf _?” she demanded, and my stomach twisted with the way she waved the blaster, her finger dangerously near the trigger, “You make me  _ sick _ , always so ungrateful. I gave up  _ everything _ for you, and you stand there talking about me like I’m  _ crazy,  _ like I can’t hear every word!” _

_ “Ma, we don’t think you’re crazy,” Benten cajoled at once, taking a few mincing steps towards her. He’d always been so much better at this part than me. My legs longed to flee, my hands curled into fists ready to punch my way out if needed, but Ben just smiled his easy smile and approached her like she was some poor harmless stray, “We love you and we  _ are  _ grateful—” _

_ “Keep your pretty lies, Benzaiten,” Sarah snarled, “You’ve always been full of shit,” I saw Ben’s shoulders hike up towards his ears slightly at the cruel criticism and then her attention fell back to me, “Not like Juno, no, you inherited that from me. Brutal honesty, right?” _

_ She had it backwards, I thought. Benten was the honest one, I was the cheat. That had always been the case, “No,” I started, “I—” _

_ “Is that why you left me, Juno?” she needled, “Couldn’t stand spending another night under my roof, seeing what you have to look forward to?” she gestured to herself, the muzzle of the blaster bumping against her sternum, “Well, take a good look, little monster!” _

_ “Ma, leave him alone.” Benten urged softly. _

_ “He shouldn’t be here!” Sarah said shrilly, her gaze and blaster shifting to Benten, “He  _ left _ us, Ben, he left  _ you _ , abandoned you here with me so he could chase after some planet-hopping fantasy!” _

_ “No, Ma, he’s here because I asked him to be.” Benten explained calmly, that sweet smile staying on his lips, weightless as anything. _

_ “You wouldn’t, you—?” Sarah’s eyes bugged dangerously, the blaster shaking in her grip. _

_ “To see me dance, Ma.” Benten tried to explain, his voice gentle, “In the recital to—” _

_ The blaster went off in a plasma-blue flash and Benten was thrown back, crumpling on the carpet with a gargled moan. My knees hit the floor beside him and he was coughing and I was saying his name. _

_ "Juno,” he managed, blood staining his teeth and smoke rising from the smoldering tulle, “‘S’okay,” he winced, still reassuring,  _ always _ fucking reassuring, smoothing things over. His bloody cough did nothing to dislodge his smile, “Love…” his blue eyes drifted from my face and he stiffened around another gurgling cough. Lips curled, too stubbornly, stupidly optimistic to frown, even in death. _

_ “Ben, Ben, please,” I was begging, but he had gone still, his eyes that were so much like mine glassy and sightless. I still had my eyes, though, I still had my sight, and I turned it on Sarah, hate filling me up like I’d never known. I wanted to destroy her like I’d never wanted anything before, “What,” my voice squeaked on the first word before gathering strength, “Did you do?” _

_ Sarah met my baleful gaze and I saw my own hate reflected back. Blue eyes. She opened her mouth and a sound escaped her. It was full of disbelief, of something that was breaking. Shattering like a bottle against a skull, like a dream going to pieces, a horrible sound. _

_ A laugh. _

I woke thrashing, my body a wild animal desperate to fight its way out from a predator’s clutches. When my arm hit something warm and smooth and a soft grunt landed on my ears, I fell still and opened my eyes. 

It was dark, but some light bled in from the street past shiny curtains, the fabric reflecting the plasma-blue and neon candy-red. Hyperion City. Shiny curtains, I’d looked past them towards the sky and said something dumb about sewers and stars.

“Juno?” That voice — deep, warm, with that sumptuously-disguised Outer Rim accent — was like a magnet, and my eyes snapped to the man beside me. Dark hair tousled around his lean face, pale and worried in the dim. He was squinting slightly and I realized it was the first time I’d seen him without his glasses. It made him look softer, younger, more vulnerable somehow. Or maybe that was the fact that he was in his pajamas, more shiny fabric, some kind of robe that I wouldn’t mind seeing a little more of under different circumstances.  _ Peter Ransom _ , my brain sluggishly supplied.

Right. That’s right. I was still at Peter Ransom’s apartment in Satan’s Diner. I’d been in a bit of a daze when we walked here from… the… precinct.

It fell on me like the dome caving in, like the physics of gravity itself had shifted and all the planets and lonely moons meant to crush me beneath their weight.

Not a dream. Well, it  _ was _ a dream, just now. But before that, it really happened.

“Oh, Juno...” I felt the couch dip with his weight and then the warmth of an arm slid across my shoulders and I was drawn into an embrace. I wanted to melt into him, into that spice-warm scent of his that had followed me among the stars. There had been moments I was sure I’d caught a whiff of it on some of the tiny Outer Rim moons — in the epic bazaars of Zahhak, the hungry streets of Brahma, the honeycombed mining towns of Balder where yttrium and cerium are scooped out of the ground like ice cream — but it always eluded me. It only existed in the detective’s presence, wrapping around me now. If only I could enjoy it, but I couldn’t, my mind was at war with itself and when the hand that stroked my back shuddered, I realized belatedly that it was  _ me _ that was shuddering. Shame rose in me, too. I was  _ crying _ .

We sat that way until I ran empty and even then I clung onto him a minute longer. Long hands gently gripped my shoulders and I let go, avoiding Peter Ransom’s eyes, “I’ll fetch you some water.” he said and his voice shook slightly. I was pretty sure I managed a nod. He came back and pressed a cup into my hands. It was soothingly cool to the touch and I took a sip. Silence fell between us and I took another sip to fill it. Peter cleared his throat, “I want to ask if you are alright, but I fear that would be a dreadfully stupid thing to ask.” he said.

I smiled slightly at the endearing redundancy of his words, “I’ve been better.” I said and my voice was rough so I took another sip of water.

Peter ducked his head and I realized I’d embarrassed him, “Of course,” he said, “It would appear that I’ve said something stupid nevertheless.”

“No, it's — ” I said, reaching out and touching his shoulder only to pull back my hand in surprise when I found it damp and cold. I made a face, “Shit, I slobbered all over you!”

He waved a dismissive hand and then took hold of my outstretched one, “Not to worry, dear thief.” he reassured, the endearment slipping out smooth and easy as if he’d been calling me that for years. I wished he had been, I realized, I wished he would.

“I think I just…” I met his eyes, “It’s true, right? My brother’s dead?”

His expression answered my question before his words did, “I wish I could tell you it was not so.”

“...fuck.” I stated simply, and I would have cried all over again if I could have.

“We do not need to speak of it, Juno,” Peter said, “The wound is still so very fresh and we are practically strangers.”

It had no right to —  _ I _ had lied to  _ him _ — but it stung like rejection, “Right, yeah,” I said, bristling. I felt naked, “Sorry about all this.” I tried to extricate my hand from his, but he held on.

“No, Juno, I didn’t mean—” he released my hand, and raked his fingers through his hair, “Right. Well, then.”

Silence fell again, but in it waited only thoughts I’d rather set aside for now, thoughts of Benten’s pretty designer leotard with a smoking hole exposing the ruin of his guts. Sarah saying my name like it was a curse, Sarah laughing, Sarah lifting the gun, “ _ Thank you _ !” I said in a rush, forcing my focus back onto Peter Ransom, “You could have easily gotten me locked up, but you helped me.”

“You didn’t kill them.” Peter said, as if it were that simple, as if I was  _ blameless _ .

“I screwed you over, though,” I pointed out. Maybe I could get Peter to throw me out, to yell at me and punish me like I deserved for all the lying and double-crossing and disappointing I had done in twenty-seven years, “With the Stingkitty collar. I used you and then I just ditched you, left you high and dry.”

It was hard to read Ransom’s feelings on his face. It wasn’t just the dark of the room either,  _ he _ was hard to read. If I was honest with myself, that was part of why I hadn’t been able to shake him off, hadn’t been able to forget the dizzying scent of his cologne or unreadable sharpness of his opaque smile, even trillions of miles from Mars, “Do not ascribe more significance to it than it had,” he said coolly, “You were doing your job, and I do not hold it against you.” He was a good actor, but he’d pushed the act just a bit too far. He  _ did _ hold it against me, I realized, and I was almost glad to know he even cared enough to be bitter. Maybe, just possibly, he had found me hard to shake off too.

“Well, I maybe took doing my job a little too far,” I said, “Kinda like you did today, getting me off the hook.”

I expected Ransom to argue that point but he only studied me a moment before conceding, “Fair enough.”

“Thing is,” I said, stringing my words together carefully as I closed the distance between us on the couch. Maybe I couldn’t get him to punish me, but I could maybe get something that would distract me even better, “I can’t afford to have debts,” My face was very close to his and his eyes were black in the low light and it would have been so easy to fall right into them, “Whaddya say I… make it up to you?”

The offer hung breathless between us. My hand pressed on Peter Ransom’s knee and I imagined I could feel the beat of his pulse in my palm, but it may have been my own. His lips parted and the sight of his sharp canines had desire coiling hopefully in my gut. I realized I was looking at his mouth and lifted my gaze back to his eyes, but they were trained on my own mouth. I wet my lips and moved a fraction closer, intoxicated by the smell of him and the promise of another kiss, as silky and endless as the first we’d shared.

But then he went rigid and was pulling away, putting a respectable distance between us, “No, Juno,” he said, though his voice was a little ragged around the edges, deliciously so, “I may be a fool, but I don’t succumb to the same trap twice.”

The accusation stung, slightly, although I couldn’t blame him. I had no designs to trap the private eye, only to lose myself in him awhile. But it wasn’t like I wanted it that bad. Fine, “Okay, detective,” I said, trying to keep the rejection out of my voice, “I guess I’ll just have to make it up to you some other way.”

Peter Ransom sighed and I felt a pang of guilt, “All I want from you are answers, Juno,” he said, then, “What did you want with the Stingkitty collar prototype?”

“ _ I _ didn’t want it, okay?” I corrected at once, disgusted as ever by the memory of the brutal collar, “That thing was _cruel._ Besides, I’m a professional. Thieves don’t do most of their stealing for themselves, ya know.”

I could feel his eyes scanning me for some sign of dishonesty, but he wouldn’t find it. I was being truthful, “Very well, then who was your client?”

Now that gave me pause. The client who had had her eye on the collar prototype was the same one that had brought me back to Mars now. She needed something else. I’d all but forgotten the current job and my not-so-minor doubts about it, but now that I thought of it, it seemed like trouble in a way I wasn’t sure I could ignore. 

“Juno?” Peter prompted and he was giving me a hard look. After the soft way he’d been eyeing me, after how kindly he’d held me through my humiliating tears, it pained me to have that wall of professionalism thrust back up between us.

“I don’t know if I should tell you, alright?” I said, scrubbing a hand over my face, sticky with the salt of my tears, “I… have my suspicions that my client is dangerous and I don’t want to put you in a bad spot.”

“Oh, spare me,” Peter rolled his eyes, “I have no need of your gallantry, Juno. I won’t deny you wear it quite dashingly, but I assure you I can take care of myself.”

“Fine, then…” I couldn’t argue with him; from all I’d seen, Peter Ransom could handle himself perfectly well in risky situations. Without his quick thinking and focus, I probably would have screwed up getting the collar in the first place, “First she wanted the prototype of the discipline collar, a project that you'll recall Stingkitty dropped after too many beta testers accidentally killed their pets with the overpowered shock and throttle functions,” Ransom nodded, not that I’d expected his cunning mind to forget any of that, “And I figured she was just an adrenaline junkie or something, that she was into high risk sex or something,” Peter Ransom’s eyebrow arched, though I couldn’t tell if it was with skepticism or…  _ interest _ . Damn it, I wish I knew, “Look,” I defended, “I wasn’t going to ask. People don’t want a nosy thief, so I left her business to her and just did the damn job. Only now… now she wants another prototype, an unpickable lock that is being developed by Safe Cells.”

Peter’s expression darkened, “It sounds like your suspicions are founded,” he said after a moment, “That would be a terribly dangerous combination. What is her name?”

“It’s… Mara Vial.” I confessed. 

Peter gave one of those maddening laughs of his — not the fake kind he threw around like throwing candy from a parade float, tricking most everyone into liking him and trusting him with his calculated affability melting sweet as sugar on their gullible tongues. No, this was one of his  _ real _ laughs, breathy and eye-crinkling and wily, way more rare and so much more irresistible, as spicy and dangerous as the others were saccharine, “Now that is most certainly an alias.” he said, canny and direct.

“Maybe,” I scoffed, “As a thief named ‘steal’ I can’t exactly judge.”

Peter smirked at that, “It is a rather on the nose, isn’t it?” he said with a sort of conspiratorial pleasure.

“People’ve got all sorts of names.” I shrugged, returning his smile a little, “You can’t exactly cast stones,  _ Peter Ransom _ .” Peter flinched ever-so-slightly, so minutely that I wondered if I had even seen it at all. It might have been my imagination, but even so… for the first time it occurred to me that  _ perhaps _ Peter Ransom may not have been a real name.

It was a distressing thought. Which… was idiotic, as well as unfair. After all, I traded one false name for another as easily as the wealthy changed to a different pair of heels. Ransom didn’t seem to hold Fauna Lovejoy against me, so shouldn’t I try to be as generous with him?

A yawn snuck up on me, and Peter jumped to his feet, as if eager for the excuse, “We ought to try for a bit more sleep. Goodnight, Juno.” I watched him leave the room, the dark satin of his robe moving around his willowy frame like water. Just as I laid down, I heard his footsteps approach again and peeked over the back of the couch to see him in the hall, “Don’t…” he hesitated, “Don’t go anywhere, I… You’ve piqued my interest about this case and… why, we worked well together.”

He was much taller than me, but hugging himself around the waist in his pajamas, alone in the hall, it struck me that Peter Ransom looked very small. And… though he didn’t seem to resent me for Fauna Lovejoy, it struck me that my dishonesty may have dealt a little more damage to the flamboyant and brilliant detective than I had realized, “We did,” I agreed, “I’ll… see you in the morning, Peter.” I could just barely make out the ghost of a smile on his face in the dark before he nodded, and turned, sauntering back in the direction of his bed.


	3. Peter Ransom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for this chapter:  
> un-explicit description of masturbation  
> referenced animal testing/animal abuse  
> reference to infidelity

I woke a scant few hours later, with the first fragile light of dawn. I lay in my bed, tangled in the creature comfort of dark silk for some time, and stared at my ceiling. I watched as the murky light flooded in and sought to make sense of all of the new information that had crowded its way into my skull the night before.

Before yesterday, Juno Steel had been no more to me than a name on a hastily scrawled note, read and reread far too often. That name had at times weighed like ballast in my pockets, and at times enticed my eyes skyward to wonder where amid the dome-blurred stars my dear thief had disappeared to. But now? Why, now Juno Steel was a very real and solid person. He was a person who had lost everything yesterday, as far as I could surmise, and who had soaked my shoulder with tears on the heels of a nightmare, and had tried to tempt me into kissing him at least twice. 

Somehow, I had resisted. I did not for the life of me know  _ how.  _ I did not know if I could be that strong a third time.

After a while spent wondering in dizzying circles, I finally dragged myself out of bed and into the washroom. I meant to wash quickly, but once I was bare beneath the spray of the hot water, my hand strayed rather insistently southward. Moments later with my forehead pressed to the cool tile and my climax crashing over me, Juno Steel’s name sighing silently off my traitorous tongue, I reasoned with myself that it was a tactical choice to take the edge off my arousal. It was much, much too easy for the thief to wield my own desire against me and anything that might help me resist him was a defensive measure worth taking.

With my hair still damp and my thighs still tingling, I wrapped myself in a robe (a different one than I’d worn the night before, to protect Juno from the guilt and embarrassment he might feel if he saw how thoroughly he’d soiled it with tears and mucus) and left my room. I hadn’t  _ meant _ to hold my breath, but upon seeing Juno’s slumbering form, I released a held breath and couldn’t resist smiling slightly to myself. He was still here.

As quietly as I could, I moved around my small kitchen, preparing coffee and some food. Every time I made the smallest sound, I glanced at Juno, worried that I may have woken him… or perhaps just seeking any excuse to look. I imagined that anyone would have been tempted; the sleeping thief was an absolute vision. He was sprawled across the dark red couch, the pale silk of the pajamas I had loaned him cutting a beautiful contrast against the warm brown tone of his skin. One pantleg had ridden up to his knee where the opposite foot was tucked beneath the shapely muscle of his calf, and the shirt remained unbuttoned as it had been during our small-hours conversation. One of those lovely, capable hands rested against the softness of his belly, half obscuring the distracting trail of dark hair that disappeared beneath the waistband. The other arm was bent, the hand resting palm-up beside his peaceful face. I had never seen him peaceful, but he wore it beautifully. 

I sipped coffee and picked at breakfast, trying to read over the information I had gathered back when we’d worked the Stingkitty collar case. I skimmed the names of those involved, but could find nothing that pointed me towards Juno’s suspicious Ms. Vial. I hoped that he might recognize a picture of her.

My eyes drifted away from my comms and back to Juno. The light spilling in the window was diffused and orange-tinged — as the light on Mars often was — and he looked almost gold dusted around the edges. His dark lashes cast shadows on his cheeks and I was possessed by a reckless desire to kiss them until he opened his eyes. His full lips were parted and I easily envisioned them curling into a drowsy smile before he leaned up off the red cushions and kissed me back. The fingers by his face twitched slightly and my focus was drawn again to that lovely hand.

Something dropped cold and heavy to the very pit of my stomach as it dawned on me that it was just the way his brother Benzaiten’s hand had sat limply by his face in the crime scene photo officer Falco had sent me.

I nearly spilled my coffee when Juno’s comms began to beep. He sat up on the first beep, whirling and looking around him as his sleepy brain obviously tried to determine where he was. His eyes found me, peering at him as I was from my kitchen counter and I preened internally to see the dark blush rise in his cheeks before he reached for his comms, “Yeah?” he greeted gruffly. He listened and the color drained from his face. He cleared his throat, “That’s me, yeah… Oh. Good… What? ...Oh, okay. Yeah, yes... Okay.” The call ended and suddenly Juno did not appear peaceful and comforted on my couch, but like an ancient sailor in a lifeboat, adrift and baffled and alone.

“Juno?” I said, “What was that about?”

“HCPD,” Juno said, “They filed it as a murder-suicide, but… they need me to, um… make arrangements for… the bodies.” With each word his voice grew quieter and less certain.

“We can go whenever you’re ready, dear thief,” I said, hoping to bolster him with my surety, “Once you’ve had something to eat, at least.”

“No, I,” Juno’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, shaking his head to himself as he stood shakily, “I should go, I, thanks, I—”

“Juno,” I said and his eyes found mine and I was surprised by how dearly I wanted to be the rope that pulled him out of the sea and to safety, “Have some breakfast.”

Juno blinked at me and I swear I saw the precise moment when his hands took hold of the proverbial rope and he came back to himself, “Yeah,” he said, “Okay.” 

I tried not to ogle as he stood and stretched. I directed him to the washroom and took another sip of my now-cold coffee and turned my attention back to my comms. Juno returned and I did not lift my eyes to admire him as I directed him to the food on the stove. He sat at one of the stools by the counter with a plate of food and asked, a bit awkwardly, “What are you reading?”

And then I had a perfectly good reason to look at him. I was thankful for it, I didn’t believe I could have kept my eyes to myself much longer, “I’m looking over some suspects to see if we don’t already know the true name of your Ms. Mara Vial.”

Juno’s eyebrows lifted at that, “Suspects?”

As I explained my line of thinking to him — that Ms. Vial had to be one of the developers or beta testers of the collar to have known about its existence — Juno seemed to come back into focus. He chewed his breakfast thoughtfully and nodded at appropriate times, his blue eyes barely leaving my face, “So, how do we narrow down which one is her?” he asked.

“That’s where I hoped you might be able to help,” I said, “Or is it wishful thinking to suppose you might recognize her?”

The excitement in Juno’s expression answered me before his words could, “No, I mean, yes, I could,” he said, nodding almost eagerly, “We met face-to-face when I gave her the collar before I left Mars.”

I don’t know if I managed to conceal my grimace at the reminder of Juno’s prompt disappearance after our first meeting. I pulled up the pictures I had compiled while Juno slept and showed him my comms, “Any familiar faces?”

Juno’s eyes moved left to right as though he were reading a book and then grew round, “There!” he cried, pointing to one of the faces.

“Really?” I hadn’t dared to hope it might be that easy.

Juno expanded the file attached to the image, “She was a beta tester… says they programmed the collar to —  _ eugh, seriously? — _ and their dog was never the same. No wonder…”

“Her name, Juno, what’s her name?” I prompted. Though anything in her file had the potential to be relevant, I had a feeling her name would be more pertinent than her traumatized pet.

“Marlena Verdrücken,” he read, pulling a face and snorting softly, “Mara Vial.”

“Well, although  _ you _ don’t seem to have any such limitations,” I pointed out with a laugh, “Many people find it easier to use aliases that resemble their actual n—” I cut myself off abruptly, “Pardon me, I… I believe I  _ recognize _ that name.”

“Well, it’s the sorta name you don’t forget easily, I guess,” Juno remarked, repeating and drawing out the syllables, “Mar-leen-a Ver  _ Droo- _ ken.”

“That’s it!” I said, snapping my fingers, finding the answer in my head. A delighted laugh escaped me — I was not as rewarded by investigation as I had been at thieving, but there was no denying the thrill that came with clues slotting into place.

“It is?” Juno asked dubiously, but his eyes glittered with curiosity, and something that bore a resemblance to fondness.

“Give me my comms, please, Juno,” I said and he did. I explained quickly as I looked for the associated files, “Yes, I am acquainted with Mrs. — actually Dr. — Verdrücken. She was a client of mine about a year ago, a rather open-and-shut infidelity case if my memory serves me, and it usually does.”

“Hm,” Juno said around a sip of coffee, “Infidelity. Always a bummer.”

“Indeed,” I murmured distractedly as I sought the pertinent files.

“So, do we call this coincidence or is there some correlation, do you think?” Juno asked, an eager edge to his voice.

“Lesson one of investigation, my dear thief,” I said, ignoring the twist in my stomach at how easily the words flew from my tongue, “It is  _ never  _ a coincidence.”

Juno cocked his head to one side, a bemused smile on his face, “That's a load of crap,” he pointed out succinctly. I raised an eyebrow, and he countered, “The cops could have called any PI in Hyperion City to twist my case for them, but they call you?” He snorted smugly, “Coincidence. Just a freak act of chance.”

I hummed thoughtfully, gazing at his face a touch too long, “Believe what you will, thief,” I allowed, “But our meeting again could just as likely prove my point.”

“What, you think it’s  _ not _ a coincidence?” He asked as I looked back at my comms, “What the hell do you call it, then,  _ fate?” _

I finally found my information on Marlena Verdrücken, and not a moment too soon, “A-ha!” I exclaimed, “Here she is, yes. I remember now! She’s a scientist with Nebula Enterprises.”

“Pharmaceutical Nebula Enterprises?”

I cocked an eyebrow at Juno and glanced up from my comms, laughingly I asked, “Naturally, Juno, is there another Nebula Enterprises I’m forgetting?”

Juno rolled his eyes and asked, “So was she the cheater, the cuck, or the mistress?” 

“The cuckold, I’m afraid.” I frowned.

“Bummer again.” Juno said. 

I realized his plate was empty and much as I hated to remind him of it, there was other business that needed to be seen to, “Now that you’ve eaten, we should be going soon.” Before my eyes, the thief’s expression crumpled and grew dull, “Do you need something to wear?”

He shook his head in the negative and got to his feet, gathering his clothes from the day before and walking off to the washroom without another word. I went to my room and dressed myself — nothing too flashy, as this was a somber occasion, just simple high-waisted trousers and a jabot blouse — and waited for Juno. He emerged after some minutes, dressed again in the sensible grey leggings and skirt, and black sweater he had worn the day before, his feet clunking loudly on my floor in his boots. He snatched up his long taupe coat from the hook where I had hung it and put it on with a practiced swirl. “Ready?” I asked.

The line of his shoulders stiffened, “You can stop that any time, Ransom.” he said.

I frowned, “Stop what?”

“That!” Juno said, throwing up a hand and giving me a sideways sneer. I could see that look in his eye again, like when he’d woken from his nightmare, like a cornered prey animal puffing up its fur to scare away a predator’s teeth, “Hovering, and, and helping, and— I don’t need a goddamn babysitter! I can do this myself!”

“If you insist, Juno, by all means,” I said gesturing to the door as though my heart were not rebelliously threatening to break in my chest at the thought of him walking away, “I did not mean to insert myself where I’m not wanted.”

Juno groaned, “Just  _ stop! _ ”

“Apologies, did I get my lines wrong?” I said, annoyance rising in me. If he was going to go I’d rather he just get it over with, rather than berate me for some imagined slight or other, “You’ve already told me to stop and I believe I’ve already agreed to.”

“Stop  _ patronizing  _ me, okay?” Juno snarled, “Stop looking at me like I’m some pathetic little animal you found smeared across the street and decided to save!”

I blinked at him. I had been feeling a little like that, as if Juno was a wounded thing that I had to protect. I hadn’t supposed he could tell, “Alright,” I acquiesced, hands up in a show of surrender, “I’m sorry. I may have behaved egregiously, but I assure you I meant no harm.” I nodded at the door, “Go see to your business and when you are finished, if you still want to pursue the Verdrücken case as a team, we will reconvene.”

Juno’s narrowed eyes searched my face and my posture, as if scanning for the hint of a lie or ulterior motive. As the seconds ticked by, the tension fell away from his frame bit by bit and the sneer fell from his face, flattening into a surly frown. Finally he sighed, the jut of his jaw causing the air to rustle the mess of dark curls that fell across his forehead, “Come with me if you want,” he grumbled, grabbing the doorknob and wrenching the door open with more force than the task required, “Doesn’t make a difference to me.”

Baffled by the invitation, I chuckled silently to myself at the infuriating lady. Grief manifested itself in innumerable and unpredictable ways, I knew, and I wrote this contradictory exchange off to that and hurried after him.

When we reached the sidewalk, I asked tentatively, “Greener Pastures Mortuary?” I knew from some of my cases in the city that that was where most of the victims of violent crime wound up, if it was left up to the HCPD. I shuddered to think what sort of deal had been struck to make it so.

Juno nodded.

“I could get us a cab, if you prefer,” I offered, “But if you’d like to walk, it isn’t far.”

“Walking’s fine.” Juno mumbled, scuffing one boot at the pavement.

“Very well.” I said and began walking in the appropriate direction, Juno following my lead. Silence fell between us as we walked through the haze of the Martian morning, both of us plenty experienced at tuning out the racket and stench of the streets. I considered telling Juno more about Marlena Verdrücken and her husband’s unfaithfulness to her, but when I glanced at him sideways, he appeared to be deep in thought. I supposed that he had to steel himself for the task that awaited him, and the least I could do was give him some quiet in which to order his thoughts.

Hence, it surprised me when we’d walked a few blocks and he scoffed out suddenly, “Greener Pastures, I mean, is that name a joke or what?”

“Pardon?” 

“I mean, we’re on goddamn  _ Mars _ , Peter!” Juno laughed, but it was a harsh and mirthless bark, “There’s no  _ green _ anything here, unless you count the simgrass ‘round the floating mansions, and there are sure as shit no  _ pastures! _ ”

“It is my understanding that the name is euphemistic, Juno,” I said as delicately as I could, “Implying that your departed loved ones have gone to, as they say, a better place.”

Juno’s mouth worked with such distaste that I expected him to spit on the ground, “That’s bullshit,” he gritted out finally, “They’re not  _ departed _ , they’re  _ dead _ . And they haven’t gone anywhere but to the refrigerated drawers at this goddamn Pastures place.”

“As I said, dear thief,” I said, aiming to soothe but wholly uncertain I would manage it, “Euphemistic.”

Juno continued to frown but did not argue the topic further. Instead, he changed the subject just as I had refrained from doing, “So, Verdrücken. Tell me more.”

I couldn’t help but be relieved. If what Juno Steel needed was a distraction, that I could certainly provide. If what he needed was someone who could make sense of the cosmic joke that was human mortality, well… I put my hands in the pockets of my trousers and talked about Marlena Verdrücken instead, “I’ve already told you a good deal of what I know. She is a scientist at Nebula Enterprises, research and development if I’m not mistaken, and she came to me when she had suspicions that her husband was being unfaithful. It wasn’t very hard to prove her correct. Mr. Verdrücken — first name, Chip — was in fact having an affair with one of his wife’s colleagues, another Nebula scientist, Anala Bunsen.”

Juno winced, “I know I said it before, but… that really is a bummer.”

I nodded sympathetically, “It is.”

“Do you know anything else about her?”

“Not much,” I said leadingly, “...Apart from the lab’s hours and of course, the building where she lives.”

“Peter!” Juno said, giving my shoulder a shove that surprised a giggle from me as I stumbled. 

“You brute.” I accused lightly, swatting at his shoulder.

“So, what do you think?” Juno asked, and I swore I could see the gears turning inside his head, “The lab will have more security, so checking out her home will probably be a safer bet. Is it an apartment?” I nodded, “Great, so we can pose as guests maybe? Or, no, better yet pretend we're interested in moving in. If they think we’re a potential sale, they’ll be much more accommodating.”

“Then prospective residents we shall be.” I agreed. It was the approach I too would have taken.

“A couple will be our best bet, I think.” Juno said rather quickly, as if he thought he might sneak the words by me if he squished them all together.

“You think we can make it believable?” I couldn’t resist teasing, going so far as to bat my eyelashes and flash him a smile.

Juno’s eyes traced the line of my mouth for half an instant before he looked away, “Well, we’re too close in age to claim to be a parent and child, and I don’t think anyone would believe us as siblings.”

I wrinkled my nose, “Perish the thought.” I said, without a hint of irony. I would not relish pretending to be any family to Juno Steel other than his spouse, “Couple it is, then. Newlyweds, perhaps?”

“The oldest trick in the book,” Juno said around a smile, “But with good reason. I don’t know why, but salespeople can’t resist newlyweds.”

“It’s the optimism they exude,” I posited, pretending that I was not paraphrasing Mag’s explanation of the phenomenon to me from years before, “Newlyweds are still high off the matrimonial leap of faith, and that faith is catching. Any sale, any investment seems like a worthwhile one in that state of mind. The salespeople that seek to con real newlyweds into poor investments are seeking to profit off of the very same contagious air of optimism that attracts thieves such as ourselves to taking on the role.”

Juno had worn an impressed expression as I pontificated, but it faltered slightly as I concluded, his mouth wearing a crooked sort of smile, “ ‘Thieves such as ourselves’?” he repeated.

How had I allowed myself to slip like that? It had been  _ years _ since I had called myself a thief, and barely a day with Juno Steel and already my lies were unraveling. Luckily, a diversion presented itself in the form of a large neon sign, depicting a sun setting in the valley between two sloping green hills, “Ah, would you look at that!” I declared, as if I had noticed nothing amiss at all in what I had said, “We’re here.”

Juno came to a halt, visibly shrinking inward as he looked up at the sign, the green and yellow of it reflecting off his dark skin, making the old scar across the bridge of his nose look a bit unhealthy, “Peter,” he said tightly, completely counter to his outburst back in my apartment, “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Of course, you can, Juno,” I coaxed, “You got us out of that elevator shaft at Stingkitty labs, didn’t you? And you incapacitated those security bots with very little assist from me. And I’m sure hundreds of other, greater, feats that I did not have the fortune to witness. From what I understand, you clawed your way out of Oldtown and have bounced around the galaxy getting into, and more impressively,  _ out of _ trouble. You can do this. Why, truthfully I believe you could do nearly anything.”

Juno shot me a grateful, unconvinced smile, “I don’t know what the hell I did to get you to think so highly of me,” he said, “You should hate me, but you  _ act  _ like you’re my friend.”

I blinked. It had been a long time since I’d had a friend, if in fact I had ever really had one. “I suppose,” I spoke the words as they occurred to me, “I  _ am _ your friend, Juno.”

Juno’s hand found mine and squeezed it, “Glad to hear it.” he said tightly.

“Come then, my friend,” I said, the word feeling foreign but somehow pleasant in my mouth, “And we’ll get this over with together.” Juno gave me a very strained smile and an even more strained nod, and then I opened the door and we moved on to Greener Pastures.


	4. Juno Steel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a pretty heavy one, so be kind to yourselves, please! It does feature the first instance of fake married trope and Peter being a real one, so it's not all doom and gloom.
> 
> TW for this chapter:  
> allusion to child death, disappearance of Annie Wire specifically  
> implied/referenced death, human remains, cremation, burial  
> survivor guilt  
> Juno being a sad, sad, troubled, very sad lady :(

I couldn’t really keep my promise to Ransom, that we would do this  _ together _ . Once we were inside the mortuary, I froze up. It was no way for a thief to behave — I ought to have been able to keep my head together and play my part in any situation — but for all that I'd been fairly successful, I suspected that I was maybe a lousy thief. A man was asking for my name, asking what he could do to help us, but I couldn’t take my eyes off something beyond him. A door was not fully shut, and I could clearly see a coffin, a very small,  _ heartbreakingly _ fucking small coffin. And it reminded me of another little coffin, interred without anything inside it, of a little girl that was never found  _ because of me _ . And all I could think was that this place was full of death, and that they dealt in tragedies even fucking worse than my own every damn day.

“Forgive my wife, sir,” Peter Ransom was saying, in a fawning, rushed cadence distinctly unlike his own, “He’s suffered a bad, terrible loss, quite thoroughly shaken, the poor darling, but, oh, I’m sure you see that all the time.”

“It’s, um, quite alright, Mr…?” 

“Oh, Steel!” Ransom giggled nervously, apologetically, “Where is my head? Must be the grief getting to me as well, addling me all up.”

“Steel?” I watched the man ask with a nonplussed expression. I knew how he felt.

“Yes, yes, my poor, dear wife here is Juno,” Peter explained. Our hands were still linked and his other hand petted my occupied arm dotingly, “And I’m… Cupid.” This all seemed like it was happening very far away from me but a choked sound distantly related to a laugh escaped me at that.  _ Cupid? Really? _ “Oh, beloved,” Ransom said, clinging to my arm, “Do not weep.”

“Juno and Cupid Steel,” the man repeated, tapping at a comms. He knew how to keep his expression blank but I saw the exact moment, the barely-there flicker of pity in his eyes, when he realized which bodies we belonged to, “I’m very sorry for your loss,” he said, and for the first time since we’d come in, he sounded sincere, “Right this way.”

The man led us to some chairs and I was glad that I couldn’t see the child-sized coffin anymore, even if I could still feel it peripherally, still felt a prickling awareness that my grief was just one grief amid countless griefs that passed through these doors. My loss mattered to me, of course, but it didn’t matter in all the vastness of human civilization and the universe and somehow that was  _ worse _ . Just… worse. Without me, everyone would easily forget Sarah and Benten. I wondered, fruitlessly, if Ben had lived another day, if he had danced in that premiere show, would his name be one that was remembered? Would enough people have seen the grace and vigor with which he’d danced that they would  _ care _ to remember that he’d ever existed? Or were we all destined to be forgotten, no matter what we did, buried away in the drifting Mars-red sands of time?

“Beloved,” Ransom’s voice dragged me back to the present, “What do you think? Burial or cremation?”

It was a ridiculous question. I’d have to steal some big ticket items to possibly afford burial. Barely anyone on Mars could, and even if they had the creds, who would want to pay an arm and a leg to stick dear old granny six feet deep in the irradiated dirt? “Cremation, duh.” I managed to mutter out.

“Yes, yes, dear one, of course,” Ransom said. His fake voice was cloying and yet the ease with which it wrapped around endearments was oddly comforting, even if it was all a lie, “I remember your brother saying as much, beloved.” Upon hearing that, I tried to remember if Benten had ever actually  _ said _ what he’d wanted. I sifted through snippets of a million conversations, — gossip about teachers from a spotty twelve-year-old Ben; hushed fears about Sarah getting worse; fondly scolding me to dance more, smile more, trust more, believe in more; rambling explanations of the juiciest tabloids about Hyperion City's ultra-rich; descriptions of choreography I could only sort of follow; heated debate about merits of  _ The Cold-Eyed Cops of the Frozen City _ ; red-faced excitement about a promising first date; carefully worded questions designed to get me to open up to what exactly I did when I was away from Mars — but I couldn’t remember ever talking about what the hell we wanted done with our meatsuits after we had left them. It was irresponsible, maybe, but we were — no,  _ I _ was — only twenty-seven. And if I’d ever have tried to ask Ben, I knew he would have laughed it off, as if death was just an inconvenient myth that pertained to other people but not to him.

_ “They’ll breathe a great big sigh of relief someday when we’re gone, Juno!” _ I heard his laughing voice in my head, clear as a bell, unfettered by any concept that that day would ever actually come when the cops on the Oldtown beat wouldn’t have the Steel twins to worry about. And of course, that was why we’d never talked to each other about it, too…  _ when  _ we’re _ gone… _ we. If death was ever going to come, it would come for both of us. We’d been brought into this sewer together, there had always been an unspoken certainty that we’d leave it the same way. After all, how could one of us keep going without the other, just the stranded half of a matched set? And even if we  _ could _ , we  _ wouldn’t _ want to… would we?

Ransom’s hands applied a steadying pressure to my hand and arm, but I wasn’t even trying to follow the discussion he was having with the man. Would I want to be stuffed in a box in the ground or burned to ash? It didn’t matter, but my skin crawled at the thought of the box. I wanted to believe that Ben would have felt the same, but I just didn’t know. I was never supposed to be the one making this decision, I was supposed to be in the cold drawer next to his, gone and dead and not giving a shit about the body I’d once had. The man was showing Ransom some options or other on his comms and I felt an unwelcome anger bubble up in me. They were  _ dead _ and these people were going to  _ burn them _ , how complicated could that even be? It all seemed like a cruel joke and my fists ached to meet whoever tried to deliver the punchline about how _somehow_ my lungs were still filling with air that I hadn’t done the first goddamn thing to deserve.

The man stood and excused himself and then Peter was speaking to me again, “Juno, I hope that was acceptable,” I didn’t know what the hell he meant, I didn’t turn to look at him, too busy glaring a hole in the seat the man had occupied, “Juno,  _ dearest _ , you’re  _ crushing _ my hand.”

That shook me out of my thoughts long enough to loosen my grip on Peter’s hand, “Sorry,” I gritted out, “Sorry, I just—”

“Hush,” he patted the back of the hand that still held his, “You don’t need to apologize. I don’t mind handling this, I just don’t wish to make any assumptions and offend you in the handling of your family’s remains.”

I could hear the nervousness in his voice, the fear that he was truly going to somehow choose the wrong thing, “I don’t really  _ care _ , Peter,” I said, “Like I said, they’re gone. Whatever happens to them now, I mean, within reason…” I shrugged, running out of words.

“I understand, beloved,” Peter said softly, covering my hand with his again, “I’ll take care of them, and then we can go.”

There was no one to overhear what he was calling me, but I knew from experience the way that personas could at times blur together around the edges. And well… I was selfish. There was a bone-deep sort of comfort in having his warm, deep voice speak to me as though he loved me, and I would take that comfort while I could. I took a chance and rested my head upon his shoulder, shutting my eyes against it all when I felt his cheek pressed lightly to my crown.

I heard it as if from a great distance when the man returned, but I did not bother to open my eyes. I just listened to the way Ransom’s voice sounded even deeper with my ear pressed to his shoulder, followed the odd patterns of Cupid Steel’s speech. He was doing damn well at staying in character, for someone who probably didn’t have much practice at this sort of acting. I wondered if he’d gone out for school plays growing up, the way Benten always had. Had they even had school plays in whatever backwater planet in the Outer Rim that had produced Peter Ransom? He was good at exuding class and suavity, if he’d been half as able growing up, he would have always snagged the lead role, just like Ben. Oddly, I hoped that there had been _someone_ who had recognized the young Peter Ransom's potential. Maybe he’d had some jaded, uninterested teacher like the one who had doubled as theater director at Oldtown High, who for all his distraction still couldn’t ignore the talent and charisma that had always oozed off Benten like slime off a Jovian Sludge-Lemur. 

It made my brain feel like quicksetting cement to think about how all of that talent and charisma that had followed my other half around for twenty-seven years was just  _ gone _ . Not just the talent, but the  _ everything _ . The warmth, and the jokes that only he and I understood, the stupid nicknames he wouldn’t forget, the nagging that always got under my skin even when no one else could ruffle me. No one would ever mistake us for each other now, would ever comment to me about the many ways in which I was inferior to my twin (I could never help but agree). All of it, all of that stuff that had followed me around since the goddamn womb was just  _ gone _ , wiped off the face of Mars with one little blast.

And Sarah…  _ Ma. _ I flinched, body and mind. I couldn’t go there yet.

I vaguely registered when I was being guided to my feet, the warm narrow hands that led me where I needed to go. It was so weirdly easy to trust those hands. I shuddered at the light and the stink and the noise when we emerged outside. One of Peter’s hands slipped away from me and I whined as he said something about a comms and his remaining hand pulled me closer. I leaned against him. He was tall and a little too skinny and I pressed my face into the ruffles that covered his bony chest and breathed in the spice-sweet nameless smell of him, filling my nose with it rather than the stink of the sidewalk. His other hand returned, fluttering lightly over my hair, down my shoulder, and I slumped more heavily against him as he tutted quietly, “Oh, Juno, my love…”

It meant nothing, it was just the lingering habit of his role, but it felt good to hear it anyway.

After a stretch of time, Peter’s hands guided me into a cab and when the car glided away, I began to return to myself. I looked down at the simleather seat between us, at Peter’s hand that had not let go of mine once since we’d reached the mortuary’s doors. I cleared my throat and I could feel him look at me, but I didn’t look away from our linked hands, “I’m sorry.”

“I told you, Juno,” he said patiently, “You don’t need to apologize.”

“I knew it wouldn’t be great,” I said, tilting my head back against the car seat and shutting my eyes, “But I didn’t think I’d shut down on you. So, listen, I’m sorry, whether you want my apology or not, okay?”

“...Okay,” he said unconvincingly.

“What?” I asked without looking at him.

“I was deciding whether it was too corny to point out that this is just the sort of thing that friends are for.” he said, and for once, I could sense genuine hesitation in him, maybe even  _ insecurity. _

I glanced at him and sure enough, his eyes were downcast, his pointy canines gnawing nervously at his lip. I wanted to reassure him but maybe I had used up all my sensitivity for the day or something, and instead of reassurance, what came out was, “Cupid Steel is one hell of a friend.”

Peter’s fair cheeks reddened at the jest and he shut his eyes, “I should be the one apologizing, I suppose.”

I snorted, “Don’t.”

“We didn’t agree to that.” Peter pointed out, tilting his head.

“I guess, but we had literally  _ just _ agreed to pretend to be a couple,” I shrugged, “Honestly, that was some quick thinking, even if the name could use some work.”

“Cupid is a member of the ancient Roman pantheon of gods, same as Juno,” Ransom dodged, “It’s hardly a stretch.”

“It’s ridiculous,” I corrected, “But apart from that, it was impressive. If you ever get tired of kissing up to the cops, you’d actually make a good thief.”

Peter’s hand spasmed in mine and he coughed what might have been a laugh, “If you say so, Juno.” He said.

I drifted back up the stairs to Peter’s apartment, and it wasn’t until we got inside that his slender fingers finally slipped out of my hand. He asked me something but I didn’t answer; I couldn’t really hear it over the rushing blood in my ears and the occasional out of place snatches of Ben’s voice that kept bubbling up through my thoughts. Then Peter was standing in front of me. His expression was concerned and it pulled me back to myself enough to realize that I was still standing right inside the apartment door, arms limp at my sides. He brought me to the couch where I had slept and disappeared for a moment and when he reappeared, he was pressing a mug into my hands. The steam rising to my face felt nice and smelled a bit like toothpaste, “What?” I asked, articulate and suave as ever.

“Tea,” he explained, sitting beside me with his own mug in hand. He took a sip, “Peppermint. I find it soothing.”

I scrutinized him for a moment, trying to figure out  _ why _ he gave a damn whether I was  _ soothed _ . His expression was relaxed, but there was worry in his eyes, in the tightness of his mouth. I had never really liked tea but I took a sip for his sake. It was weird - hot and herbaceous - but as it slipped down my throat the sensation felt cold, and I watched Peter Ransom’s eyes watch me, “Thank you.” I said, and some of the concern melted from his face. I took another sip and hoped it might at least soothe him to see me drink it.

“You’re welcome, Juno.” He said simply. 

I looked down into the mug and drank from it again. I really didn't care for the taste but it was nice to hold something warm, to have something to do with my hands and my mouth. Having something small to focus on reined in the sandstorm of my thoughts, as I waited for the heat to fade to the sensation of cold between each sip. The repetition of it was sort of soothing after all. When the cup was empty, I moved some of Peter’s papers to make a spot for it on the coffee table. I sat back, bending my knees and resting my cheek against the back of the couch, “I'm okay,” I lied.

Peter had been looking at his comms, one long pointed finger twirling a lock of his silky black hair in concentration, but when I spoke he looked up at the sound of my voice. He didn't look convinced, but there was a softness to the close-lipped smile he offered me that I’d never before seen on his face. I almost couldn’t make sense of it, that he was the same man I had roped into helping me with the Stingkitty case. 

That man had been so… fake. Charming as anything, and fascinating in his obliqueness, and good enough at his job that I had overlooked how tiresomely devoted to ‘the plan’ he had been. Not necessarily good at  _ his _ job, so much as he seemed good at  _ that _ job, better at sneaking and taking than detective work would seem to require. I thought, for the hundredth time at least, that he’d make a pretty good thief. Normally it would bother me, how the bits and pieces of him didn’t add up, but just then even that suspicion didn’t sit so easily in my head, not with the way he was smiling at me almost sweetly, seated on his couch like we were old friends. It was beautiful — he always was, but with that look on his face, I could imagine the paranoia and the artifice falling away, leaving behind this beautiful man who was showing me kindness that I had not earned, “You don't have to be, you know,” he said, finally, “You are well within your rights to not be ‘okay’, Juno.”

“Right.” I said, because I didn’t know what to say. It was like he was handing me a gift, but it was too big or too heavy and my hands did not know how to take it from him. If I tried, I was sure I would drop it. It was warm on the couch, comfortably so, and I shut my eyes for just a moment.

When I cracked them open again, the light in the room had changed. The fabric under my cheek did not feel like the upholstery, but something softer and warmer. I blinked a couple of times and realized that my head was pillowed on Peter Ransom’s thigh. He had been humming a tune, but I only realized when he abruptly stopped. A hand rested cautiously on my head, “Juno?” he said quietly.

“Whatimizit?” I mumbled, closing my eyes again and giving in to the urge to press my face into his warmth for a moment more.

“Hm, about 1400.” He answered and his fingers curled in my hair for a lovely second before withdrawing, “You haven’t been asleep long. After last night’s disruptions, I was loathe to disturb your rest.”

“Yeah, thanks,” I said, reluctantly sitting up and grimacing, “Sorry for sleeping on you.”

“Quite alright, dear thief,” Ransom said before apparently recognizing the tenderness in his voice and settling a mask of professionalism back into place, “I’m going to make us some lunch and then perhaps we can talk logistics in regards to infiltrating Dr. Verdrücken’s apartment.”

“Alright.” I agreed. Ransom set his comms aside and unfolded his long limbs from the couch, snagging our mugs from the table and striding into the kitchen without another word. I sat and stared out the window at Hyperion City’s iconic skyline, the floating mansions and the looming blue illusion of the dome, the rising fumes and the hanging smog catching the orange streetlights and the candy-red neon and the plasma-blue and making the whole view one abstract watercolor mess. As Ransom moved around in the kitchen he started humming again and it made my heart and all the ribs around it ache. I looked out at this city that had been home, from within a farce of domesticity with a man I couldn’t possibly know or trust as much as I would have liked to. It struck me again that Benzaiten was really gone, irretrievably, and that I really was alone on this cruel red rock.


	5. Peter Ransom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About time we get these idiots fake-married, amirite?

“...Would you mind repeating that delivery address back to me?” I asked one last time, wanting to be absolutely certain that nothing had been lost in translation. The woman on the other end did so correctly, “Thank you, my dear,” I praised, “We will pay upon delivery.”

“Are you almost done, Ransom?” Juno nagged, but I ignored him as best I could for the moment.

“...and there’s absolutely no refunds or cancellations,” the woman was telling me for the umpteenth time, “It's policy. You get that, right?”

“Yes, my dear, I understand you perfectly.” I reassured one last time before bidding the pleasant woman farewell and ending the call. I turned by attention back to my associate, “My apologies for the delay, but a well-laid diversion can be the difference between success and failure.”  _ Lesson one of thieving _ .

Juno didn’t bother to turn his glower on me, all of his ire directed instead at the building that stood across the street from us. It was truly something to behold. So many of the structures in Hyperion City were old and run-down, crowded in on each other, designed with a desperation to make the most of every available inch of square footage beneath the city’s dome. Newer buildings perched atop the past, elevated walkways and odd-angle stairs giving a pedestrian the impression that they were surrounded by great many-legged spiders of metal, concrete, and glass. In many corners of the city, on street level one would find oneself surrounded by crumbling old walls that seemed held together only by stubbornness and the many layers of graffiti, and it was only by taking the right stairs upward that one would find their way to the newer structure slapped on top. 

It was expensive to demolish, and it was a corner that developers in Hyperion City relished in cutting. And as follows, it was a particular flaunt of wealth to raze an area properly before erecting something new. And that was certainly part of how the building across the way had courted the glare it was presently receiving from the surly thief at my side. But not only was this building planted so boldly flush on the ground, but it had the gall to be ostentatious about it. It was one of the new-fashioned highscrapers, spearing the sky at a height that simply had to be compensating for something. Its facade was a mess of columns and crenellations, with faceted simglass windows twinkling as mockingly as fresh-minted creds. But perhaps worst of all, it did not blend into the palette of Hyperion City, which would be rendered all in shades of grey were it not for the electric blues, candy reds, acid greens, and electric violet of neon, and the holographic billboards that affronted one’s eyes night and day. But the building that awaited us had the  _ nerve _ to defy all of that, and be pink.

“Are you ready to go in?” I asked, concealing my amusement with Juno’s murderous expression, so at odds with the conservative and demure blue dress he wore. 

One of his clever, dangerous hands was twisting the pearls at his neck as if he meant to use them to throttle himself, or perhaps me, “It makes me  _ sick _ , Peter! All it takes is enough goddamn creds and you can live in  _ this _ Hyperion City,” he sneered, willfully ignoring my question and glaring up at the building’s highest floors, “High enough up in a fancy tower that you can ignore the rest of us killing each other for scraps down on the stinking streets!"

“Buck up, Regina, my darling,” I admonished, finding the privileged patter of my new alias, “Without that jolly old economic disparity, you couldn’t look forward to finding a love nest in there with your Rex.”

Despite himself, Juno snorted something that resembled a laugh, coughing and turning it into a giggle with some focus, “You’re so bad,  _ Rexie-poo _ ,” he said, overselling it for my sake, as I offered him my arm and he hooked his hand through my elbow in an attempt at being poised and ladylike. When he looked up at me though, his eyes were alight with that moral outrage that I had been so intoxicated by since our first meeting, and when his pink-painted lips bent into a crooked, daring smirk, I could not imagine anyone I’d rather have at my side on a job such as this one, “Let’s do this.”

I knew Juno did not much care for disguises. To be frank, there was no hiding the fact. I’d watched him wrinkle his nose in distaste at every outfit I had suggested for housewife Regina Cobalt, and I’d tried to be patient as he’d fussed over the hat as if I were asking him to store a Rangian Venom-Crab atop his head and not a harmless (and rather flattering) white Venusian beret. If I was truly and utterly honest with myself, despite habitually avoiding that act on principle, I found Juno’s unease with disguises rather endearing. He looked adorable in his getup as Regina, and the way his irresistible hands fiddled with his skirt and his pearls and his handbag only made it easier to portray the role of besotted husband.

Besides which, I couldn’t have said the last time I felt such a thrill. It had been so long — far  _ too  _ long — since I had had a disguise to sink into like Rex Cobalt. I’d had a little taste of it the previous day when I’d posed as Cupid Steel, but that had been a spur-of-the-moment necessity, not a  _ role _ . So much of the joy of a disguise was in the development of a whole and rounded character, in the planning, in the attention to every last detail as I constructed their story from the ground up. And it was something of a relief to cast off Peter Ransom for a while and be someone so _different_. Rex, unlike Peter, was a scientist. And Rex, unlike Peter, had an employer that paid a steady and generous salary. And Rex, unlike Peter, had settled down with a lady who doted on him. So it stood to reason that Rex would dress and speak differently, would walk with a different stride and comb back his hair, and choose a pocket square just the precise shade of cornflower blue as his little wife’s dress for an outing as sentimental as this one.

And Rex had no qualms about opening the gilded door of that lavishly ridiculous building as if he already called it home.

The door opened onto a lobby with a high ceiling and a fountain. Juno restrained his reaction to a barely audible huff, but I could certainly feel the righteous indignation vibrating in the air around him. I patted the hand that rested in the crook of my arm, and said, just loudly enough to be overheard by anyone who cared to listen, “Regina, my darling, why not make yourself comfortable? I’m going to see if I can’t find someone to show us around, and I know how dull you find that sort of thing.”

“It’s not that it’s dull, Rexie-poo,” Juno said cloyingly, straightening his hat, “I just don’t see why I’m not assisted without having to go through the trouble of  _ asking _ .” He went so far as to pout and I nearly laughed aloud at the display as he added, “It’s just so  _ common _ .”

I wondered to myself as I watched him wander off around the lobby’s perimeter if perhaps I had underestimated his acting abilities. I couldn’t tell if he actually realized that this building did not actually house the fabulously rich, but the gauche social-climbing members of Hyperion City’s bourgeoisie. I smiled to myself in the sheer delight of not knowing, was the thief accidentally playing his role well by mocking the rich, or did he know precisely what he was doing? He perhaps felt the weight of my gaze, for he glanced back at me over his shoulder, skirt swaying around his knees and hat placed just so upon his dark curls. He frowned but I saw the blush rise in his cheeks in the instant before he made a  _ shoo _ -ing gesture in the direction of the gilded reception desk. I marched over to the desk, reminding myself all the way not to let myself get carried away too entirely by playing the part of Juno’s smitten spouse. A disguise, after all, by its very definition would ultimately be cast off and it wouldn't do to get too comfortable.

“Hello, sir, how can I help you?” The woman behind the counter asked cheerfully.

“Why, yes, hello there,” I glanced at her blouse — an impressive dupe of something from designer Charmeuse Bombyx’s summer line — to read her nametag, “Claire, what a pretty name,” her pasted-on smile turned genuine before my eyes, “My lovely bride and I are here to look at an apartment that’s caught our interest.”

“Oh, how nice!” Claire said, and I could see that newlywed effect that Juno and I had discussed work its magic on her, “What is your name, sir?”

“I’m Dr. Rex Cobalt,” I said, laying a hand on my chest, before casting a soppy look across the lobby at Juno and saying breathlessly, “And the exquisite creature over there is my radiant wife, the one and only Regina Cobalt.”

Claire tittered at the unabashed display of puppy love, “Cobalt, then, let’s see…” she tapped away at the monitor in front of her for a moment and I watched a small crease form between her brows, “That’s weird,” she said, before looking at me as though she were deeply personally apologetic, “I’m very sorry, Dr. Cobalt, but I don’t see you on here. And I’m afraid we never show apartments to anyone whose credentials haven’t already been cleared in the preliminary screening process.”

“Oh, don’t look so sad, my dear,” I reassured her warmly, “Of course, I entirely understand the precaution. You can’t have  _ just anyone _ walking in off the street.”

Claire’s expression relaxed a little, “Yes, exactly. Thank you for being so—”

“It’s only I was assured just this morning that it would be alright,” I went on airily, glancing at Juno again where he was disinterestedly gazing at little mail boxes for the residents. I sighed, “It’s only I hate to disappoint my darling Regina, when she’s been so looking forward to this..." 

“Oh, no…” Claire barely hesitated before playing right into my hands, “You said you… spoke to someone?” 

“Yes, yes, early this morning, perhaps it just hasn’t been put on your schedule there, yet,” I said and Claire glanced at the screen distrustfully, as if it was more likely to be lying to her than a charming stranger off the street, “I feel quite a cad,” I confided, leaning towards her on the counter with a bashful grin, “But I’m dreadful with names and I’m afraid I can’t recall for the life of me who it was I spoke to. Lovely,  _ lovely _ woman, and so very helpful, too…”

“Older than me?” Claire provided, and I nodded. It was a tried-and-true conversational maneuver, and just simplicity itself with this naive little thing just giving me every answer, “With mauve hair?”

“Yes!” I enthused, “That’s the one! Oh, I can just nearly remember her name!" I feigned frustration with myself, "Why, it’s just on the tip of my tongue…”

“It’s Lenore.” Claire said with a conspiratorial sort of glint in her eye.

I made a show of relief at getting the answer, laughing out and snapping my fingers, giving Claire my most winning smile and watching her cheeks turn pink, “Oh, you’re a lifesaver, Clara, that would have bothered me all day!”

“You really are bad with names,” Claire said with a giggle, tapping one fingernail against her nametag, “It’s  _ Claire _ , not  _ Clara _ ,” I crumpled my smile and opened my mouth to apologize, but before I could she waved it off, “It’s okay, Dr. Cobalt,” she said, “And if Lenore approved you for a tour, I’m sure it’s just fine, even if it’s not in the computer.”

“Splendid, just positively splendid,” I gushed, “Thank you ever so much,  _ Claire _ .”

She laughed, “Let me just get one of the other girls to cover the desk and then I can show you the apartment.”

“A marvelous plan.” I said with a small bow, as Claire stood up, brushed off her skirt and bustled through a discreet door behind the desk. I turned away from the desk and walked across the lobby to Juno, delighting in the cadence of Rex’s walk, just so subtly but distinctly different from that of Peter Ransom.

“Really dialed up the charm there, didn’tcha, Rexie-poo?” Juno asked softly with one eyebrow cocked as I reached his side.

“Well, I wasn’t about to risk being told  _ no _ .” I said. 

A smile just flickered across Juno’s features and he shrugged, “I wasn’t bashing your methods, Dr. Cobalt,” he said, “Your charm has never been in question.”

I was surprised by the heat that crept up my neck under my cornflower blue cravat. The way Juno was looking up at me, half-mocking and half-praising and very nearly batting his eyelashes, would have been enough to unravel anyone, “Why, Regina, my darling,” I cooed, “You flatter me so.”

“Don’t get a fat head about it.” Juno said, and a little of his delightful prickliness poked through Regina’s fluffy exterior. 

“My head is perfectly-sized and we both know it.” I countered and watched with satisfaction as Juno’s eyes slid from my own down to the sharpness of my grin. He opened his mouth to respond and I nearly held my breath, perfectly content to go on like that with him all day, but alas, we were at that moment interrupted by the task at hand.

“Dr. Glass!” I turned to see Claire waving us over from beside two sets of elevator doors.

“Come along, Regina darling,” I said, offering Juno my arm again, “Our future home beckons.”

Juno’s left hand slipped into place at my elbow easily, naturally, and for the space of a second, his expression softened before the simpering mask of Regina Cobalt was tugged back into place. We met Claire by the elevators and Juno offered Claire his right hand with all the soft-wristed delicacy of a debutante, “Regina Cobalt, darling.” he introduced.

Claire shook his hand, “Pleased to meet you, I’m Claire Pylon,” she said and I watched her expression war between being envious and positively starstruck, “I’ve heard quite a lot of good things about you already, Mrs. Cobalt.” she glanced at me as she said this, releasing Juno’s hand.

Juno covered his mouth with the hand as he giggled, “Forgive me, my dear, but I still get a bit of a thrill hearing that!” he pasted on a lovesick look which he cast my way, “ _ Mrs. Cobalt _ , I don’t think I’ll ever tire of how that sounds…”

“You two are adorable,” Claire sighed, as the elevator  _ ding _ ed and the doors opened, “Just so in love.”

I followed Claire into the elevator, one of those showy glass contraptions that allow you to watch the city fall away beneath you as you go up. Juno followed right along with me, although I was surprised when his hand tightened on my arm and a rather un-Regina-like groan escaped him, “Regina, my queen,” I said as the doors shut behind us and Claire prodded a button for the 98th floor, “What’s the matter?”

Juno gave me a frantic glare and suddenly I remembered what I’d discovered in that elevator shaft on our Stingkitty adventure, “Of course, yes, you’re afraid of heights...” I muttered, half to myself.

“So what if I am?” Juno’s nostrils flared, his persona slipping. Without waiting to think about it, I did what Rex Cobalt would do if his Regina were frightened and wrapped my free arm around Juno. To my relief and private pleasure, he did not hesitate to tuck himself into the embrace, pressing his face into the lapel of my suit.

“Is Mrs. Cobalt quite alright?” Claire asked curiously, around the 40th floor when Juno peeked under my arm and caught a glimpse of the rooftops around and beneath us and gave a rather undignified squawk before burying his face against me again.

“Oh, yes,” I explained, enjoying the impressive view of Hyperion City over Juno’s quivering beret rather a lot myself, “Dreadfully afraid of heights, my poor sweet girl,” I stroked Juno’s back, adding softly, “I’ve got him, though.”

“Are you quite sure Mrs. Cobalt would enjoy living on the 98th floor?” Claire asked, with real concern in her voice, “I mean, we’re only at the 72nd floor now and he—”

“He’s very brave.” I insisted, a little surprised to find how instinctively I leapt to Juno’s defense.

“Shut up.” Juno said, his voice muffled just over my heart and foolishly, impossibly, warming it.

Finally we reached the 98th floor and the elevator stopped. The second the doors opened, Juno all but flung himself through them, standing in the hall with an expression like he’d narrowly avoided certain death. Tactfully, Claire did not comment again on the spectacle, only walking a couple of paces ahead of us and saying sweetly, “Right this way, please, right this way.”

We followed after her and I bit back the desire to say anything to Juno, hazarding a smile at him when he slipped his hand into mine. He kept his eyes trained on Claire.

When we came to the right door, Claire pulled a keycard out of her pocket and opened the door, holding it open and waving us inside ahead of her. I couldn’t say for certain, but I did not think Juno was acting when he gasped at the apartment within. It was a breathtaking space, high-ceilinged and airy with large windows that let in the light and the spectacular view. We followed Claire around as she guided us through the large, cozy living and dining area, the high end kitchen, the luxurious washrooms, and the bedrooms. 

Back in the living room, Juno’s free hand trailed almost reverently along the throw blanket draped over the arm of one of the couches, the tassels along its edge trickling between his fingers. And for one fleeting, excruciatingly lovely moment, I couldn’t resist imagining it. Imagining sitting on this couch with Juno slumbering in my lap like he had the previous day, a nap not tinged with the exhaustion of grief but with the safety and comfort of a trusting partnership. I imagined Juno in the kitchen in an apron — I hadn’t the first idea whether or not he could cook, but in fantasies everyone is a chef — shooting me a wink as he tasted something from a ladle. I imagined laying him back on the sumptuous bed in the master bedroom, his blue eyes starry and soft as my fingers deftly opened a placket of buttons, the warmth of his skin under mine and his lips parting around a blissful sigh,  _ ‘Nureyev…’ _

My mind blanked for a second, a wall crashing down painfully between me and the uninvited fantasy. Where had that damned thought even come from? “Ran— Rex? Rexie-poo?” Juno was actually saying, and a strangled laugh escaped me at the farcical nature of it all. What could better illustrate what a  _ fiction _ my true name on Juno’s lips was than his voice shaking around my idiotic aliases?

“Hm?” I managed, blinking several times and forcing Juno’s face to swim into focus. He looked worried, and I hated that I’d put that look there.

“Are you quite alright, my darling man?” he said, trying too hard to sound like Regina in his fretful state.

“Yes, yes, my sweet Regina,” I said, only a little tightly, “You needn’t worry.”

“Ms. Pylon was just saying we ought to be going.” Juno said, squeezing my hand.

“Oh, dear, already?” I said around Rex’s rueful laugh, “I hate to leave, it… already feels like home, doesn’t it, Regina darling?”

“Sure,” Juno said, his brow still creased as he gave me an odd look, “Sure it does, Rex.”

“Adorable,” Claire praised again, oblivious to all that was going unsaid between the pair before her, “I think it’s meant to be yours.” she added confidentially as the three of us left the apartment and emerged back into the hall. And perfectly on schedule, Claire’s comms beeped. She frowned at it, “Pardon me,” she excused, “I have to take this.” We turned to each other as she answered the call.

“For real, you good, Rex?” Juno asked quietly, “You squeezed the shit out of my hand and squeaked like you’d seen a ghost. You got a phobia of fancy light fixtures you never told me about?”

“Don’t be silly. I’m fine, I promise.” I lied.

“...we didn’t arrange any flower delivery,” Claire was saying into her comms, “What do you  _ mean _ no refunds or cancellations?!” Juno tried not to smirk as we eavesdropped. Claire groaned in frustration, “I know what  _ the words _ mean, but I don’t— Wait,  _ how many _ floral arrangements?” Claire swore under her breath and glanced back at us, giving a polite smile of apology, “I’m sorry, but I have to go handle this. You can find your way out, yes?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” I urged, “We’ve taken up enough of your valuable time, Cara.”

“ _ Claire,  _ dear.” Juno corrected.

“It was lovely to meet you both, I—” Claire frowned at something being said in her earpiece, “No,  _ no, _ I’m coming now, damn it…”

As she disappeared into the elevator, Juno pulled me by the hand, “C’mon,” he said, “Let’s go drop by our neighbor Marlena’s.”

“Juno, the elevator—” I began.

“We’re taking the goddamn stairs.” He ground out, tugging me towards the sign for them, “We’re only going down eight stories,” he explained, “Her mailbox down there said she was on the 90th floor, room J16.”

I couldn’t keep myself from smiling at his investigation skills as well as his irascibility, “Lead the way, Regina, my darling.” He rolled his eyes at that, as we started down the stairs, but a smile lifted the corners of his lovely pink lips and he never let go of my hand.


	6. Juno Steel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW for this chapter:
> 
> an animal appears in this chapter who shows signs of mistreatment/neglect and animal testing

Floor 90 looked pretty much exactly the same as floor 98. It had the same simwood floors with the planks laid in a fancy-looking chevron pattern, the same delicate wallpaper, the same light fixtures, the same evenly placed boring paintings. I wasn’t sure if the paintings were literally the same ones or just equally forgettable. 

It sure was a far cry from the Oldtown tenements with their sagging ceilings and water-stained walls and discolored carpeting underfoot, tacky in more ways than one, offending the eye and simultaneously clinging to the soles of one’s shoes. My jaw clenched at the comparison. I had always known there was wealth in my city, and this wasn’t even the farthest extreme of it. It wasn’t my first glimpse of the way the other half lived either; I’d learned my craft picking pockets and burgling in my own hometown before I’d ever tried it further afield, after all. But even taking all of that into account didn’t make it any goddamn easier to reconcile the fact that all of this luxury existed only blocks away from the world where kids like me and Benzaiten had needed to get creative about where we swiped our lunch from day after day.

“Ah, here we are,” Ransom announced, and I was relieved to note that the frantic strain that had been in his voice upstairs had all but vanished, “J16, yes?” he confirmed, the elegant hand that I wasn’t holding pointing to the gold numbers upon the door.

“That’s the one.” I said, my free hand fishing in my pocket for my digital lockpicks. I stilled when Ransom rapped his knuckles soundly against the door, “Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” I demanded.

“This?” Ransom asked, knocking again, “This is an old Earth custom, a means of announcing one’s presence and requesting entry into a room.”

A small growl of impatience escaped me at his condescension, “Yeah, yeah, thanks for the etiquette lesson,” I rolled my eyes, “But aren’t we, ya know, breaking in?”

“Naturally, dear Regina,” Ransom gave me a sly smile, and I pointedly ignored the fluttering in my belly at the glimpse of his sharp, white teeth, “But we wouldn’t want to barge in on Dr. Verdrücken. On the whole, breaking in is so much more enjoyable when you have the house to yourself, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Speaking from experience,  _ Rexie _ ?” I needled. It was increasingly apparent to me that the gorgeous detective beside me — obnoxiously resplendent even in a stuffy grey suit with too much product restraining his hair — had way fewer qualms about legality than I had once believed. The suspicion that he was not what he seemed had continued to creep at the back of my mind, roots digging deeper with each new hint to that effect.

He shrugged and his clear, dark eyes glittered. He had opted for an understated shimmery eyeshadow for Rex, different than the sleek black liner I’d always seen him wear, and somehow it made his eyes twinkle even more brightly, though it was possible that was simply the thrill of being on a case. Odd though it was, I didn’t know him well enough to say for certain. “I don’t think she’s home,” he said, with an unconvincing frown, “What a pity.”

I rolled my eyes again, “Outta my way.” I said and his hand slipped from mine as he stepped aside with a theatrical wave of one long arm. My hand had grown a little clammy with being held and the air against it felt cold and unpleasant. Ransom was mercifully quiet while I fiddled with the lock. After a couple of minutes, I finally managed it, the lock lighting up green and the doorknob twisting freely under my hand.

“Bravissima, Regina, my queen,” Peter praised lavishly as we entered and shut the door behind us.

I opened my mouth to chastise him — there was no need to lay it on quite so goddamn thick now that we were alone and not trying to charm an audience with the lovebird act — but the words died in my throat. The apartment was not as empty as we’d assumed, judging by the unmistakable sound of someone whimpering back in the direction of the bedrooms. Peter heard it, too, I could tell by the small lines that bracketed his mouth in a frown.

“Let’s have a look—” he began, barely above a whisper, but I didn’t catch the end of it, already halfway across the apartment, “ _ Juno! _ ” he hissed behind me, “Get back here!”

There was no room for hesitation. Someone was  _ in pain _ here, and I could handle myself perfectly well. Ransom could be as careful and quiet as he wanted, but no one’s suffering was being prolonged for a second, not on my watch. My hand slipped into the pocket of my frumpy dress, closing around the familiar handle of my blaster. I shouldered the door to the first bedroom open, taking cover behind the doorframe and peering in. It appeared to be an office, there was a glass desk crowded with multiple monitors, piles of papers, and that sort of thing. I scanned the room for a few seconds more, but I didn’t detect any movement and knew the person whimpering had to be in the next room.

Ransom grabbed my arm, “Juno, what’s come over you?” he demanded in a whisper, “We have to—”

I shook off his hand, “Nothing’s  _ ‘come over me _ ’,” I spat, impatient, “Someone needs help and I’m gonna help them, with or without you. Got it?”

“You won’t be much help to them dead,” Ransom frowned, and for a second I was sure I’d offended him, but he was too damn hard to read, “Are you always so careless with your life?”

I didn’t bother answering. If I tried to explain to him how little my life was worth, he’d feel obligated to deny it and we didn’t have time for a pointless debate like that right now, not with that pathetic sound tugging my heart towards the master bedroom. I hurried over, shoving the door open and again taking cover behind the frame. 

The bedroom had the same dimensions as the one we had just looked at on the 98th floor, with all the same architectural features. And yet, it couldn’t have felt less appealing. The other bedroom had been opulent and somehow, at the same time, warm and inviting. Walking through it with Peter’s fingers locked with mine, I had been too weak to resist the fantasy of it entirely. It had been easy to imagine our prattling guide was not there and that it was just the two of us, way too easy to imagine a mischievous tenderness behind Peter’s sharp-toothed smile as his long hands bracketed my hips and guided me onto the bed;  _ our _ bed.

Marlena Verdrücken’s room held none of that promise. It was hard to imagine anything resembling intimacy and pleasure on the crisply made bed, with its single pillow. Curtains obscured the light from the windows and made the room feel like a dungeon despite the knowledge that it was in fact stomach-churningly far from solid ground. I stood very still for a moment, again looking for movement and trying to tell where the source of that pathetic whimpering was. My heart sank into my gut as I deduced it; they were hiding under the bed.

“Hey,” I said, softly, “Hey, we’re here to help you—”

“ _ What? _ ” Ransom elbowed me, “Juno, we can’t just—”

“Ignore him,” I said, a little more loudly and taking a cautious step into the room, “We’re here to help, we’re not gonna hurt you, okay?” There was no answer beyond a frightened whine, “I’m going to crouch down and get a look at you, alright?” I said gently, paying no heed to Ransom impatiently hissing my name from the hall as my bare knees touched the ground and I lowered myself to peek underneath the bed.

For a second, I didn’t see anyone down there, sure that I must not have located the sound correctly. And then, another whimper, and my eyes found her, “You gotta be kidding me,” I muttered to myself. It wasn’t a person, was the thing, but something even more helpless. I reached out a hand slowly, watching the way the tiny dog’s four bulging eyes tracked my movement fearfully, “It’s okay,” I reassured quietly, “C’mere, I’m not gonna hurt you, promise.”

“Juno—” Ransom said uncertainly from the doorway and the dog’s ears flattened against its head.

“I got this under control, Ransom,” I dismissed, “Why don’t you, I dunno, go look around?” For a second I thought he was going to argue with me, but then I heard his quiet steps withdraw from the room to go do what we’d actually come here to do. I wiggled my fingers at the dog, “C’mon, smallfry, c’mere.” I coaxed.

The smallfry’s nose twitched in my direction as it sniffed and after a moment’s hesitation it slinked over and gave my fingers a tentative sniff. I gingerly patted its head between the ears and watched it relax minutely, “There you go,” I soothed, “C’mon out and we’ll get you outta here.”

After a couple more minutes of that, the dog finally emerged. She was a tiny thing, having to crouch only a little bit to fit beneath Verdrücken’s bed. Her fur was brown and white, her eyes dark and liquid as strong coffee, and as jittery too. A silly corkscrewed tail wagged cautiously, still tucked against her hind legs. There was a fancy collar around her neck that didn’t quite conceal scarred areas where the fur hadn’t grown back in after the damage the Stingkitty beta model had done. I looked at the tag and made a face, “M-Mosba… Mosbachensis?” I read incredulously, totally clueless as to whether I was pronouncing it correctly, “That’s a big, dumb name for such a sweet little doggy, huh?” The dog blinked her eyes at me and cocked her head, “I’m gonna stick with Smallfry from now on, how about that?” her tail wagged with the proper enthusiasm this time and I couldn’t help but smile at her as I scooped her up in my arms.

I found Ransom in the other bedroom, tapping away at the central monitor as if it was his own office, “Find anything?” I asked.

He turned to look over his shoulder at me, several microexpressions flitting across his features too fast for me to catalogue them all — frustration in the narrowing of one eye, compassion in the softening of the brows, amusement in a twitch at the left corner of his lips — before he observed in a vague tone, “I see you have.”

“So?” I prompted, scratching Smallfry absently under her scruff.

“Yes, actually, I have found something,” Peter said, navigating to something with his fingers flying over the keys, “Here, what do you make of this?”

I crossed the room until I stood behind him, peering at the screen and skimming the text there, “I feel like I need a scientist to translate,” I admitted, and Peter hummed in acknowledgement before my eyes returned to a phrase that stood out to me. There was plenty of unfamiliar terminology, but this didn’t seem like a scientific term so much as a title for something I’d never encountered, “What’s the hell’s an  _ ultra mendacium _ ’?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Peter admitted around a thoughtful frown, “If my memory of ancient Earth languages serves me, it has something to do with…” his frown deepened.

“With what?” I queried.

“Well, with  _ dishonesty. _ ”

“Pretty pretentious way to say dishonesty,” I scoffed, addressing Smallfry as I observed, “This lady really has a fetish for obscenely long names for things, huh?”

Peter looked like he wanted to ask, but instead he went on to explain, “Regardless of what this mysterious dishonesty item might be — the context and grammar seem to suggest that it is an item — I have found some information that will actually be of use to us,” He tapped to a different page of Dr. Verdrücken’s notes and pointed one slender finger to an address in the heading, “The good doctor’s lab, I presume.”

“And our next stop.” I said, patting his shoulder, “Nice work, detective. Now, whaddya say we get the hell outta here before our luck runs out?”

“Oh, so  _ now _ you’ve taken an interest in avoiding getting caught?” Peter asked, one eyebrow arching ironically as he took a chip from the computer and stashed it in the pocket of his suit jacket.

“Basically, yeah.” I said with a shrug. I left the room ahead of him and heard him sigh behind me again.

“You are a source of unending puzzlement, my dear thief.” he confessed, leaving the office and falling into step with me.

“That’s Regina to you, toots.” I corrected as I reached for the doorknob. Peter’s eyes flicked down to Smallfry, who was beginning to doze off in my arms and he opened his mouth to voice a complaint I had no interest in hearing, “He’s coming with us.” I said firmly.

“Juno, Verdrücken is an intelligent woman,” he cautioned, “She’s going to notice if her dog disappears.”

“I don’t care,” I said honestly, “I’m not leaving Smallfry with the jerk who put her in that evil collar.”

Peter's eyes glinted oddly as he took in my stubborn face, and I saw him weigh the merits of arguing the point and the moment in which he deemed it a futile battle, “Very well,” he said, opening the door and poking his head into the hallway to make sure the coast was clear, “But on two conditions.” I raised my eyebrows, “One, you hide her as we make our exit. I would recommend stashing her beneath your skirt. We can’t risk any eye witnesses or security footage linking us to her disappearance.”

“Okay, and the second thing?”

“We’re taking the elevator down,” he said, as I tucked the tiny sleepy dog beneath my dress, held secure against my thigh by the hand at my side, “There is no way I’m walking down ninety flights of stairs.”

My stomach flipped at the thought of those glass walls and being so high up, but I knew it was a fair compromise and nodded, chewing nervously on my lip, “Okay. Let’s get it over with.”

We walked as nonchalantly as possible to the elevator doors and Peter pressed the down button. Much sooner than I would have liked, the doors opened and he was ushering me inside with a hand laid on the small of my back. The doors shut behind us and the elevator gave a small lurch that elicited a squeak from me, and then we were gliding sickeningly downward, “Juno?” Peter said, his voice low and a little hesitant.

“Yeah?” I said through my locked jaw, head swimming with the view of Hyperion City’s skyline way to close.

“I…” Peter cleared his throat, and then held out his other arm in invitation, “I could hold you again, if… if you think that might help.”

If I hadn’t been queasy with dread, I might have teased him about it, but I was in no position to make fun of anyone. Without a word, I closed the distance between us, pressing my face into his chest just as I had on the way up, filling my lungs with that mouth-watering scent of his. His arms wrapped around me and there was no use denying to myself that it did help. Smallfry snored against my thigh and Peter Ransom’s arms enclosed me and I thought I could hear his heartbeat quick and steady. The thumb of his right hand stroked absently at the back of my neck, just above the neckline of my dress, and I wondered if he even knew he was doing it, if he had any idea of the way the tiny point of contact seemed to pour honey down the length of my spine.

I gave a small startled gasp as the elevator came to a stop, and Peter chuckled as he released me. I felt weirdly bereft at the loss of contact. As the elevator doors opened with a  _ ding _ , the smell of fresh flowers suddenly engulfed us and it was a little easier to get my head on straight without Peter Ransom’s scent playing tricks on my senses. Fresh flowers were an absolute luxury, difficult to cultivate in controlled environments and prohibitively expensive, and my eyes nearly rolled out of my head as we emerged into the lobby and I beheld more fresh flowers than I had seen in all my twenty-seven years put together.

Peter snickered beside me as we slipped unnoticed through the hubbub of staff members trying in vain to keep the delivery workers from continuing to unload the outrageous bounty of floral arrangements. There was something so very  _ him _ about this choice of diversion, the organized chaos of it, the jab at a flawed system and the people who normally benefited from it. But more than that, the flowers themselves. After all, he could have devised an inconvenient bulk delivery of  _ anything _ , but he’d chosen something rare, something thats very existence on Mars was practically magical in its defiance of and adherence to nature. And, most of all, he had chosen something  _ beautiful _ . I could hardly stand to look at him in that sea of flowers, his stride sure, his smile languid, his eyes unbearably bright. It was as if looking at all of that beauty all at once would break my brain. Or maybe just my heart?

It was a jarring transition to emerge onto the street. The building was a bizarre oasis of excess on a not-especially affluent street, and the smell of garbage and smog and vinegar-y plasma exhaust suddenly replaced the sweet perfume of flowers. My eyes had even adjusted to all the cleanliness, all the shiny and plush furnishings in shades of golds and pinks and ivory, and the sidewalk seemed so  _ filthy _ . Once we were outside, I withdrew Smallfry from beneath my dress’ skirt and removed the collar from her poor scarred neck, tossing it disdainfully at the nearest trash heap, “There,” I patted her comfortingly, “You shall now officially be known as Smallfry.” her tail wagged sleepily against me and I smiled.

“So, the animal-loving streak wasn’t all an act.” Peter observed beside me.

“I guess not,” I shrugged, “Fauna was a pain in the ass about it, but I don’t know,” I stroked over the furless patches on Smallfry’s neck, “I can’t stand to see innocent things mistreated, especially when they can’t defend themselves.”

“Hm.” I looked over at Peter beside me, and found him gazing thoughtfully at a flower that he must have plucked from one of the numerous bouquets as we passed. The blossom was round and sort of fluffy, a soft shade of candy pink, its petals fluttering slightly as he rolled the stem between his fingers.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“A dahlia,” Peter said, giving me a soft and enigmatic smile before reaching over and tucking it deftly behind my left ear, “There,” he said, his smile widening slightly with satisfaction and making my cheeks burn, “It suits you well, Regina,” his hand lingered, hovering over my cheek for mere seconds, close enough that I could feel the warmth of it without him touching my skin, “A flower fit for a queen.”

I couldn’t help but return his smile, but as I watched his exquisite features relax into something more passive, my natural curiosity burned to know the answer to the question that had been taking up more and more space in my head;  _ who the hell was Peter Ransom? _


	7. Peter Ransom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a jolly 2800 words of ~~Nureyev~~ Ransom jumping to conclusions
> 
> TW for this chapter:  
> allusion to substance abuse  
> typical dissociation/derealization re: aliases

On the night following our visit to Dr. Verdrücken’s apartment, Juno and I stayed up well into the small hours of the night. Juno prepared dinner for us (and I endeavored not to watch too intently as he navigated my kitchen). The two of us brainstormed about what it might be that Marlena Verdrücken was working on developing. When Juno tired of thinking about the case, he lay sprawled on my living room floor and engaged in long hushed conversations with the stolen dog, Smallfry. When I had asked what the two of them were discussing so intently, he had given me a small, secretive smile and declared simply that it was “ _girl talk_ ”. I had accepted the explanation graciously and hoped he could not tell how utterly charming I found it, returning to the work of sifting through the dense text of Verdrücken’s files, taking notes on a piece of paper and occasionally doodling four-eyed dogs and dashing thieves in long coats in the margins to give my brain a rest from the nigh-impenetrable scientific theory.

The third time that Juno had started snoring, curled up by my feet with Smallfry, I had shaken his shoulder and yielded the couch to him for the night, retiring to my bedroom to finish my research. I had meant to go to sleep myself before too long, but I had been too absorbed in my reading and sat up with dry eyes glued to my comms until nearly dawn. When at last I went to bed, I slept deeply and woke groggy the following afternoon, stumbling into a shower and trying in vain to rub the headache out of my temples with kneading fingertips beneath the hot water. I dressed in tried and true stakeout gear — black breathable leggings that afforded a full range of motion and boasted a full range of pockets, and a high-necked sheer black shirt, my charcoal grey simleather blazer in hand — and wandered out to the living room, holding my glasses in one hand as I rubbed my tender eyes with the other, saying, “We should stake out the lab today, I—”

I fell silent the second I situated my glasses on my face. It was foolish, worse than foolish, but the surprise punched the air from my lungs, “Juno?” I called, knowing I would receive no answer. He was gone.

I sat heavily at one of the kitchen stools, feeling blindsided in a way that I had no real right to be. I bore a rather striking resemblance to a hapless moth, surprised when it is eventually consumed by the flame it circles. I had known we would wind up here, hadn’t I? I had known that Juno would disappear on me again just as he had before. When my mind recovered slightly from the unwarranted shock of it, I cast around for a note, but this time he had not even done me that small token courtesy. 

For a sagging moment, I considered simply dragging myself back to bed and trying to catch up on the sleep I had forgone the night previous, but then my pride reared its head at the very thought. No, I would _not_ give Juno Steel that kind of power over me. At the end of the day, he was just one liar among the innumerable many in the galaxy and I had no need of him. I set my jaw and straightened my spine and made my morning coffee. When I opened the refrigerator, a sound drew my eyes to the floor. I blinked, uncomprehendingly, at the sight of Smallfry at my feet, looking up at me with her four begging eyes and obviously expecting breakfast. _How charming_ , to discover that I had been saddled with a responsibility that Juno had taken on. Nonetheless, I found something suitable for the dog to eat. It was not her fault that she had been failed not by one caretaker now, but two. I would not continue the trend.

After we had eaten, Smallfry curled up on the couch and fell asleep and I numbly washed the morning’s dishes. I caught myself stalling, as if Juno was going to return with a perfectly reasonable explanation for his absence. I had gotten a late start already, and I might as well get on with my day. I frowned at the plate I was drying. I had foregone sleep to research what Marlena Verdrücken was doing with every intention of casing her lab with Juno today. Had that preparation been wasted effort? Should I still pursue this case at all, with no paying client and my partner gone?

I narrowly avoided the plate shattering on the floor as it slipped from my hands. Juno was not, had never been, and would never be _my partner._ I did not need him with me to see this case through to its conclusion, and in fact, I would be more effective on my own without the thief to drive me to distraction and risk both our necks with his flights of reckless heroism. 

In short, I did not need Juno Steel.

I tugged on the soft-soled black boots that allowed me to walk without making a sound, pulled a comb through my hair, and painted my lips a merlot red so dark it was nearly black. The lipstick was not strictly necessary to my spying capabilities, but it was a color I adored even if Peter Ransom didn’t. I allowed myself this, a small break from the stifling parameters of that damned Peter Ransom, an alias that these days felt more like a cage than a role. Looking at my kohl-rimmed eyes and my sharp dark mouth in the mirror, I reminded myself sternly that I was a force to be reckoned with and that a flighty thief with a pretty face paled beside the trials I had overcome. 

It was an empowering story and I very nearly believed it.

It was a fruitful day. I noted entrances and exits, identified the security shift changes, took out every security camera I saw. I had every intention of waiting until after dark and then sneaking in to map the floorplan, but I started yawning and my headache resurfaced long before sunset. Lesson one of thieving, know your limitations. It was never smart to go alone into enemy territory when not at one’s functional best, so I returned home.

In all those hours of productive work, I had not managed to shake the sour mood left by Juno’s departure. When I unlocked the door to my apartment, Smallfry came scrambling over to greet me, corkscrew tail wagging, but I could barely summon a smile and pat on the head for her. Without bothering to take off my blazer, I grabbed a glass and a bottle from the kitchen. I poured a generous helping of pewterfruit brandy, but before I brought it to my lips, the smell gave me pause. The last time I’d had a drop of it was all those months ago with Juno — with _Fauna_ — and to my dismay the memory of the kiss that had followed insisted on crowding its way rudely into my skull. The damned drink was meant to be a _comfort_ , perhaps a bit of a crutch on the most trying of days. It was supposed to be a taste of home.

It chilled me that the taste of home and the taste of Juno Steel had somehow blurred in my mind until they were one and the same.

A knock came at the door, but I ignored it. I savored a sip of the brandy, and with all my powers of imagination, I pretended that I did not remember how much more intoxicating its flavor had been upon the silk heat of Juno’s tongue. Another knock at the door that I ignored; no one was home, after all. Not in the true sense of ‘being home’. I smiled bitterly to myself at the thought and paid the door no mind until I heard the digital lock disengage. I had the sole key. I watched the doorknob turn as if in a slow-motion stream, my left hand balancing the thin-stemmed glass of regrets, as my right came to rest on the handle of the plasma knife at my hip. 

Finally, someone had tracked me here. It had only ever been a matter of time. I would not go down without a fight.

But when the door opened, it was not some bounty hunter from the Outer Rim hunting a legend. It was a lady with a smile as bright and fleeting as a struck match, who tasted inexplicably like home, who stumbled gracelessly beneath a number of bulging bags and kicked the door shut behind him with an unrefined _slam_. He dropped the bags unceremoniously on the floor and scooped up an overjoyed Smallfry, before his gaze found me. My heart lost its tempo altogether when I watched his eyes drink me in slow, trailing along the black fabric that hugged my skin from throat to heel, lingering over the vertical sliver of my torso that the sheer fabric of my shirt bared in between the lapels of my blazer. His smile went crooked and he wet his lips as he stared at my mouth, the sharp teeth beneath the parted dark lips. I scowled and his eyes snapped to mine, one brow quirking, “You coulda answered the door,” he pointed out, as if he hadn’t just undressed me with his eyes or picked a lock to gain entry to my home, “Weren’t you the one lecturing me yesterday about the proud tradition of door knocking?”

“What are you doing here?” I demanded, watching with satisfaction as my cold tone wiped the humor from Juno’s face.

“Um,” he frowned, “I think I’m missing something.”

“Yes, common decency, for one,” I sniffed, “And common sense, come to think of it.”

“Okay, sooo,” Juno took off his long taupe jacket and I made a point not to let my eyes linger on the way his black turtleneck hugged his physique. I was many things, but I would not be a hypocrite, “I take it you had a bad day.” 

My brow furrowed, “A bad day…?” I repeated.

“Well, yeah,” Juno said, crossing his arms, “You’re kinda looking at me like I shit in your breakfast.”

“What a way you have with words, Juno. Quite evocative.” I observed as I wrinkled my nose, “But no, you could hardly conduct that particular offense when you were not _here_ at breakfast.”

Understanding flashed in the thief’s eyes and I regretted instantly showing my hand, “Aw, c’mon, detective, don’t be mad at me for that,” he said, digging in one of his bags, “I got you something pretty to wear for me.”

“Come again?” I asked, throat tightening.

With a flourish, Juno withdrew a garment from the bag, flapping it so that it would hang flat from his hands, “Ta-da!” he said, glancing at me to gauge my reaction to the white fabric.

“A… lab coat?” I identified, unimpressed.

“Okay, so maybe _‘pretty’_ was overselling it,” he admitted, “But I’m sure it will look pretty when _you_ wear it,” he flattered, “Besides, I got the sense yesterday that you like the whole disguise thing and there’s ID cards and everything.”

I blinked at him, “You were… working?” I said flatly. He nodded and somehow that only fanned the flames of my agitation. I took a sip of my brandy, willing it to calm my frayed nerves enough that I could be civil with Juno Steel.

“Yeah, what did you think I was doing?” he asked, walking over to the counter where I stood, gazing into the liquor in my glass and trying in vain to cool my anger. He picked up the bottle and regarded it. When I did not offer an answer to his question, he asked, “Mind if I grab a glass, or did you have your heart set on drinking alone?” I met his eyes, but it was a mistake, the waves of embarrassment, rejection, and anger that had rocked me to and fro all day surged powerfully at the nonchalance with which he invited himself back into my life _yet again_ , “If you did, I get it, Ransom, sometimes—”

“By all means, Juno, pour yourself a drink,” I said hotly, the words like acid on my tongue, “I’ll run and fetch my handcuffs and reprise my role as beguiled dupe before you _go_!”

Juno flinched back from my tone as if I had struck him, his brow furrowing and lips shaping an unspoken query before understanding dawned on him, “You thought I ditched you again.” he stated, not a question.

To my shame and horror, my eyes stung and I shrugged one shoulder as I turned my back on him and walked into the living room, “What else was I to think?” I asked, trailing my fingers across the chair where I had tasted the brandy on his lips before I fastened the handcuffs around his lovely wrists.

“Why would I leave now?” he asked, logically, “We’re working a case together, Ransom.”

“You said yourself, you no longer have roots on Mars.” I glanced over my shoulder at him, his face a study in grief and frustration.

“That wasn’t about you.” He said, his voice pained. I regretted bringing it up; whatever qualms I had with the thief, I took no pleasure in the family he had lost. He had allowed me a front row seat to his mourning, and here I was throwing that trust back in his face.

“I know.” I sighed, ashamed of myself, “My… apologies. I slept poorly last night and I am weary from staking out Verdrücken’s lab all day.”

“It’s fine,” Juno said, his eyes scrutinizing me before he attempted a change of topic, “Did you get a feel for the lab?”

“Yes,” I said, and downed the rest of my brandy, “If we get an early start tomorrow, we should be able to get to the bottom of this.”

“Oh,” I knew his eyes widened, though I did not give in to the temptation to look at him, “Tomorrow? You think we’re ready?”

“Yes, Juno, I do.” I lied. Honestly, we could stand to be more prepared, but it was the lesser of two risks. Juno’s disappearance today had thrown me out of sorts, and I realized now that he was a liability I couldn’t afford. I realized now that the longer we spent together, the stronger the thief’s hold on me would become. The sooner we could wrap up our business together, the better.

“Alright,” he said uncertainly. I could feel the weight of his gaze and I lifted my eyes to meet it. He chewed his lip before saying, “I’m sorry, Peter. I shouldn’t have… I should have…”

I waved his apology off, “Forgiven, dear thief,” I said, setting my empty glass on the counter, “I’m going to turn in early,” I said, “Forget what I said before, feel free to have a drink if you like.”

“Thanks,” he said, around a tense smile, his blue eyes full of questions that he did not voice, “Sleep well.”

I could feel his eyes on me as I retreated to my room. It didn’t make me angry as it had when he’d first returned to the apartment, and it did not fill my belly with that warm bubbly gratification as it had at other times. It just made me more tired. Tired not only from lack of sleep, but tired of the things I longed for being just out of my reach. Tired with stopping myself from going after happiness, or anything to cut through the solitude of my exile. I was tired of longing, and so very tired of lying.

It was so selfish of me to hold Juno’s initial flight from Mars against him, I told myself as I washed off my makeup, staring sullenly at a reflection that stared sullenly back. The problem was not Juno Steel, the problem was _me_ . The bare-faced man in the mirror, a man whose name I had erased. The man I was and the life I lived was all a deception, all just another alias, all a performance in a play with no intermission and no curtain call. Juno Steel was flawed and infuriating, but he was _real_ , and even if he wanted to for some foolish reason, he could never tie himself to me because, simply put, I did not exist. Peter Ransom could not be his roots, much as a terribly self-interested part of me wished to keep Juno here in this city that I still could not call home.

Tomorrow, we would wake early, we would don our disguises and yet another set of false names. We would do our job and we would do it well. The line blurred between detective and thief but at the moment, I couldn’t seem to recall the difference between the two professions. We would do our job, we would find out what Dr. Marlena Verdrücken was plotting, and in all likelihood we would stop her. 

And when the job was done, Juno would return to the stars.


	8. Juno Steel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWs for this one
> 
> some grief, self-loathing, mistrust  
> brief canon-typical violence

Most people in the galaxy labored under the illusion that they were basically safe. They assumed that all of the guards and alarms and precautions in place were doing their job and that they didn’t have to worry about it. My particular line of work often relied on manipulating that assumption, on my knowing the weaknesses in those systems which most people lived their lives blissfully unaware of. So I was just the lady for the job when it came to getting Ransom and me into Marlena Verdrücken’s lab. We flashed our IDs at the guards in the middle of their morning shift change, when they were sure to be least vigilant. That went off without a hitch, but once we were past them and I saw the expectant look on the detective’s lean face, I admit I felt pretty out of my depth.

“So, Dr. Alloy,” he asked me, his tone distracted and lofty — whether that was part of his disguise or part of the prickly attitude he’d had towards me since the night before, I didn’t know — buffing an imaginary smudge off his glasses on his sleeve, “Where do we go from here?”

“I dunno, Dr. Price,” I said, resisting the desire to stare. I’d been right, of course, he looked way goddamn prettier than anyone had a right to in a lab coat, “You’re the one who spent all day yesterday having a staring contest with this building. What do you think?”

“Over here.” Peter said, hurrying ahead of me.

“Well,” I huffed, “If you  _ knew _ where to go, why did you ask me in the first—” I cut myself off as I saw him fiddling with a monitor at the end of the hall, “What’s that?”

Peter gave an impatient sigh, pointing out the obvious, “ _This_ is known as a building directory,” one dark fingernail trailed down a list of names, his sharp profile illuminated by the blue glow of the screen, “And here,” his nail tapped the screen with a soft  _ tak _ , “Is where we want to be.”

I sidled a little closer to get a look, “ _ ‘Dr. Verdrücken, Nebula Enterprises, Level Sub-3, Suite 38’ _ . Huh,” I smiled up at him, “Nice detective work, detective.”

A smile tugged at the right side of Ransom’s mouth, the point of one white canine just barely showing itself before the expression disappeared. He took a wide step away from me and cleared his throat as he walked away, “Come along, Dr. Alloy,” he said in Dr. Price’s bored voice, already pressing the button to call an elevator, “Time’s a-wasting.”

I frowned to myself as I joined him beside the bank of elevator doors. Something was definitely still bothering him. He had assured me, both before he’d gone to sleep, and again this morning, that he had forgiven me for leaving. In fact had gone so far as to insist on the way over here that there was nothing to forgive; it had just been a misunderstanding; he had overreacted. And Peter Ransom was a gifted liar, but even he could not make it ring true. I should have left a note, or no, I should have just woken him and told him that I would be gone for the day. I hadn’t thought my absence would bother him… I hadn’t  _ thought _ much at all.

I’d just needed to keep busy, needed to focus on the case. I’d woken hours before him and _tried_ to wait for him, but my head kept trying to drag me in directions I refused to go. So I’d put my coat on and I’d walked out the door, chasing the only distraction I had that had any potential to do anyone any good.

The elevator came and we stepped inside. Peter pressed the button for Sub-3 and leaned one hip against the wall by the buttons, as far from me as the cramped space would allow, “I like the view in here better, at least.” I said, the words tumbling out of my mouth without my permission.

“Pardon?” Peter asked, one eyebrow arching sharply above his glasses, the faintest tinge of pink coloring his cheeks.

“Than the other one, I mean!” I rushed to amend, realizing how my comment had sounded and wondering how the hell I had managed to fit so much of my foot in my mouth without even trying, “The glass one at, uh, her apartment… building.”

As I spoke, Peter’s brow lowered, an unimpressed expression falling over his features, “Yes,” he said dryly, “Who wouldn’t choose this charming industrial polymer,” he waved one hand limply at the metallic grey of the elevator walls, “Over one of the galaxy’s most magnificent and famed city skylines.”

I looked away from him, considering the line where the industrial polymer wall met the edge of the industrial polymer floor, and feeling like a total numbskull. Ransom could be a real bastard when he wanted to be, and it only made it that much more confusing that other times he was a damn good friend. He had proven in our work together that he was a good actor, which left me with the nagging question; was he a bastard playing the role of good friend, or a good friend who sometimes played the role of total bastard? Which was real and which was the act?

The elevator came to a stop and the door opened, but Peter’s arm barred the way, “Yes, Dr. Price?” I said, my voice giving away my irritation more than I would have liked.

“Oh, by all means, if you have someplace to be, Dr. Alloy!” Peter gestured to the door with a flourish that had me rolling my eyes, “I only thought we might want to make a _plan_ before moving on to the next stage.”

“Well, we don’t.” I snubbed and shouldered past him. I had performed plenty of higher risk heists than this one without him, or anyone else for that matter, planning for me. I didn’t need him babysitting me and looking at me like any second now I was going to trip over my shoelaces. The hallway looked similar to the one above us, though the ceilings were a little lower and the light was all artificial now that we were a few stories belowground. The nearest door read ‘ _ Suite 36’ _ so Verdrücken’s lab had to be close by.

I spotted the door with the correct number ahead, somewhat ajar. I could hear the sound of Ransom’s heels clicking behind me as he sped up to match my pace. I nudged the door and scanned within, and finding it empty, ducked inside.

“Hello?” A voice said, and I nearly leapt out of my skin. I turned to find a tall young man emerging from an adjoining room, frowning at me curiously, “Who are you?”

“Hi.” I said woodenly, as Peter appeared in the doorway beside me.

“And who’s he?” the man asked, crossing his arms.

“Dr. Patrick Price, at your service,” Peter said without hesitation. Even with the aloof drawl that he had assigned to the character of Price, I watched his stupid charisma draw the skeptical man in, “I see you’ve already met my associate, Dr. Alloy.”

“Yeah, hi,” the man said, and I buried the urge to scowl as he began to twirl a lock of his brown hair around one of his fingers, “I’m Dr. Verdrücken’s lab assistant, Spencer. Spencer Morales. I don’t recognize you two.”

“You're a sharp one,” Ransom praised lazily, “We are new here, you see, and…” and I had to avert my goddamn eyes. It sickened me enough to make my blood boil, and I couldn’t stand to watch him turning on the charm right now. Instead I turned my attention to some papers atop a nearby desk. A couple words caught my eye —  _ ultra mendacium _ — words I had just looked up the night before, restless after Peter had gone into his room. Peter had been correct in identifying one of the words,  _ mendacium _ . It did mean ‘lies’ in a very long-dead Earth language. But the phrase together, according to some of the research I’d done, actually negated it.  _ ‘No more lies’ _ . That was what it meant, that was the goal of one of Nebula Enterprises’ works-in-progress.

Despite myself, I thought that sounded good. Too good to be true, probably.

My eyes strayed from the words to the other papers on the desk. I glanced back at Spencer Morales to try and gauge whether he’d throw a fit about me snooping on his boss’ desk. Turned out he had pretty much forgotten I was even in the room. Hell, judging by the way his undivided attention was glued to Peter, he’d also forgotten where he was and possibly how to spell his own name. My mouth twisted at the sight. He seemed like a nice, rule-abiding guy, too straight and narrow to keep up with someone like Peter Ransom, who could so easily be convinced into breaking and entering. Besides which, he was a good five years too old for him. And even if he  _ wasn’t _ , couldn’t he tell he was being lied to?

_ Probably not _ , a voice in my head pointed out to me. It was damn easy to believe Peter’s comforting lies when you were the target. When those intelligent dark eyes were staring into yours, like he was doing to Spencer right now, it made you feel like despite all of your doubts up to that point, you might  _ actually  _ be the most interesting, most worthwhile person that had ever lived. I knew the way that felt, how could I blame him for being taken in by it? 

_ ‘A beguiled dupe’ _ , he’d called himself the previous night, voice uncharacteristically raw with emotion, dark lips baring sharp teeth. But even if I was the thief between us two, he was the manipulator. I  _ stole _ from people, sure, but manipulation had never been my game. But Peter Ransom… it wasn’t just that he disappeared into an alias as completely and comfortably as if he were wrapping himself up in a favorite blanket. It went a step beyond that. Those long hands of his crawled spider-like along the strings of everyone he encountered, finding just the right one to pluck to make the puppet fork over precisely what he wanted, as if it were their own idea.

I shook my suspicions off. Peter was providing me with a perfect opportunity to investigate and I shouldn’t waste it. I pored over the mess of the desk, reading at much as I could and frankly surprised by just how much of it was familiar. It seemed like there were three projects under way at once here, and my mind was pulled in three different directions.

And then, just like it always does with a good mystery, the three converged, three cords twining together into an even scarier rope. With dread in my gut, I recognized it as the perfect rope for a noose. I finally could see Marlena Verdrücken’s vision, and I almost wished I couldn’t. 

That’s not my job, though. Ignorant bliss, that’s for the people who aren’t thieves or detectives or killers. Just go ahead and add it to the towering pile of things I’d like to unsee.

“Fine performance back there, Juno,” Peter said, startling me as he appeared at my side. Spencer Morales had gone, and Peter Ransom was looking at me like I was an especially bothersome gnat, “Tell me, how many more times should I expect to save your neck today?”

“Wha—?” I shook it off, “Oh, just shut up, will you? I think I figured it out.”

“Truly?” Peter asked, looking at the scrambled mess of the desk before me, “You managed to glean something from all this disarray?”

“Yeah, yeah, our lunatic is  _ untidy _ , it’s quite the preposterous outrage,” I said, my tone slipping into a posh mockery of his speech. His head canted to one side in annoyance, but I hurried on, “Just shush and let me explain.” He seemed a little reluctant, crossing his arms over his chest, but nonetheless he inclined his head as if to say ‘ _ get on with it _ ’. I did just that. I picked up a sheet of paper from the desk which prominently displayed the Stingkitty logo, the whiskers and ears at the top of the letter ‘s’, the long feline stinger on the letter ‘y’, “Component one is the Stingkitty collar. Automatic punishment tech, gives you scars like Smallfry if you’re lucky, asphyxiates you if you’re like one of the less lucky beta pets.” Peter nodded impatiently. He knew all this, “Okay, component twooo…” my eyes scanned the desktop a moment before finding what I was looking for and picking it up, “Working name:  _ ultra mendacium _ , Nebula Enterprises plan for a proximal truth serum,” Peter’s eyes widened, and I put the paper down to the right of the first, “I don’t know if that was our girl Marlena’s brainchild or if it just happened to coincide with her trust issues, but it’s the most important component of her project. 

“Because component three,” I grabbed a diagram from the table and placed it to the right of the first two, and rapped it with my knuckles, “Was the unpickable lock tech that ‘Mara Vial’ hired me to liberate from the developers over at Safe Cells.” Peter looked pale and shaken. I couldn’t help but feel a little smug about flapping the unflappable detective Ransom as I concluded, indicating each of the components as I described their role, “So she was designing some sort of locking device that hurts the wearer unless they tell the truth.”

Ransom put a trembling hand to his mouth, shaking his head as he murmured, “Hell hath no fury…”

“I don’t care how  _ scorned _ she was,” I said, thrown a little off balance by just how disturbed Peter appeared to be by the concept, “It's horrible.”

“I am inclined to agree with you, Juno,” Peter said, his hand falling back to his side. There was something about his reaction that troubled me, my suspicions from moments before resurfacing, “Why, it’s nothing short of a torture device… forcing the truth under duress…”

“You  _ would  _ call that torture.” I sneered.

Peter flinched slightly before his mask of unperturbed superiority slid back into place, “Oh, and you would not consider a painful interrogation to be torture?” he scoffed, “Torture can take many different forms, but that is one with a precedent since, why, I’d imagine the earliest days of human civilization.”

“You know, I  _ did _ just figure all this out,” I pointed out, “You don’t have to talk to me like I’m a child.”

“And you do not have to  _ behave _ like a child, Juno, but I’ve never seen that stop you.”

I knew damn well why  _ I _ was angry, being spoken to like that, but what the fuck did he have to be so pissed about? I groaned, “Hey, mind telling me what the hell your problem is? You should be  _ happy _ , we found the answers we’re looking for!”

“Oh, was it answers we were looking for?” Peter took a step into my space and I squared my shoulders and glared up into his face defiantly; a childhood on Oldtown’s mean streets meant it would take a whole lot more than posturing with his  _ height _ to intimidate me, “I was under the impression that our aim was to stop the diabolical doctor before her invention could do harm or fall into the wrong hands,” he went on hotly, “But by all means, dear thief, go right ahead and pat yourself on the back for  _ reading some files _ while  _ I _ talked your way out of trouble  _ once again! _ ”

I thought for sure he was going to punch me, and my fists clenched, ready as anything to swing right back. Then, for a millisecond —  _ less _ than a millisecond — Ransom’s eyes flicked down to my lips. I just had time to realize he was standing so close that the spice scent of him was filling up my lungs, that I could just barely feel the steam of his breath — and then he was turning away from me and raking one hand through his hair, messing up Dr. Price’s tidy side part while the other dug for something in his lab coat pocket.

I sucked in a deep breath of air that didn’t smell like him, steadying myself, and blew it out as a sigh, before conceding the point, “Fine,” I said, “Let’s get the thing and get out of here then. Do you see it?”

“No, Juno, I don't,” he said tightly, as he strode over to a long table that housed a computer with several fancy monitors, “And even if I did, simply taking it would not be enough. She could always recreate it from her notes.”

“Okayyy,” maybe I would punch him after all… “So what did you have in mind in that great big genius head of yours?” I challenged.

Peter blinked back at me coolly as he stuck a chip into one of the inputs on the computer, “I’m going to take pictures of those files to forward to the HCPD,” he said, “And I am uploading a rather voracious virus onto her computer that is effectively going to shred all of her data.”

“That’s… that’s not a bad plan.” I was forced to admit as Peter walked back over to where I stood and began sorting and taking pictures of the many files strewn across the desk while I stood uselessly by, “What should I do?”

Peter heaved a long-suffering sigh through his nose, “I don’t know,  _ thief _ , perhaps look around and see if there’s anything around here worth relocating to your pockets?”

Fine, I was shit at my job, did he really have to remind me every five minutes? With a roll of my eyes, I did as he said and went to have a look around. There was a lot to see, but honestly, I didn’t know what to make of most of it. After peeking through a microscope and feeling like an idiot because I didn’t even know how to turn the damn thing  _ on _ , I meandered over to Marlena’s desk. The monitor screens were glitching out rather gloriously thanks to Peter’s virus, but I was more interested in the little signs that Marlena Verdrücken was a real person. There was a pretty green mug and a box of teabags, a lot of a particular kind of pen, a tube of hand lotion. It was good to remember that she was a human being, even if it didn’t really change anything. Being a human being and being a monster had never been mutually exclusive, in my experience, and of course Verdrücken was the same.

Marlena had an actual paper calendar, which was a weird quirk. Practically everyone relied on the calendars on their computers and on their comms, I didn’t know where you would even go to buy a paper one. Somewhat fascinated by the novelty, I picked the thing up, eyes scanning over the few appointments she had scribbled in for this month. 

And then my heart stopped.

There it was, something that I had input into my comms calendar. ‘ _ Whirl dance co. revue 3pm!’ _ Automatically my brain counted the boxes between that one and today’s, five days. Five days already. 

Had Marlena Verdrücken still gone to the show? I hadn’t even bothered to consider until now that it might not have been cancelled. To me it had been  _ Benten’s _ show, there was no show without him. But there must have been, in a company like Whirl. Had my brother’s understudy been any good? Would that chance to take the stage in Ben’s place turn out to be his big break, rocketing him to stardom even though he had been the lesser talent? Or had the show been ruined? Had Marlena Verdrücken — or anyone in the audience, for that matter — had any idea the tragedy that had struck the dancer whose name was printed on the pamphlets but whose feet never reached the stage?

I dropped the calendar but I didn’t hear the sound it made as it hit the desk.  _ My brother was  _ dead _ ,  _ I thought.  _ Our mother  _ killed him _ , right in front of me and I'm… what am I doing here? _

I suppose I accidentally said some of that out loud, because Peter clicked his tongue and said, “Didn’t we just go over this? We’re trying to stop Verdrücken and you’re looking for anything worth stealing and staying out of my—”

“No,” I said, my voice sounding like it was underwater, “No… I mean, why am I  _ here _ , with you?” a bitter laugh clawed its way up my throat, “My family is  _ gone _ , why am I even on Mars?”

“Juno—”

“I couldn’t save him,” the words finally found their way into my mouth, after lurking like a sour taste around my molars since I’d watched the light dim in Benten’s eyes, “I couldn’t stop  _ her _ , why would I be able to stop Verdrücken?” I shook my head, I was small and helpless and still not worth the space I took up, and the rest of Mars was just the same, “As long as I’ve watched this goddamn dust-heap of a planet things have just been  _ bad  _ and always spinning themselves into something worse and worse and  _ worse… _ ” I realized with some distant kind of surprise that Peter was directly in front of me now and I asked of him, “Why even try and stop it, why even try and do good when there’s no such goddamn  _ thing _ as good in the first place? It’s a fucking  _ myth! _ ”

“Juno,” Peter said gently, shaking his head, “You don’t believe that.”

I laughed in his face, “You don’t know the first thing about what the hell I believe, Ransom.”

“Maybe,” he conceded, but his eyes shone infuriatingly as he went on, “But I know that you have morals — I’ve seen them at work. Why, it was your instinct for good that sensed something amiss with Verdrücken in the first place,” he chuckled, “You may like to deny it, but you’re something of a hero.”

“Not when it counts,” I muttered, “And besides, that’s a laugh. A heroic thief?”

“Like in the old Earth fables of  _ Robin Hood _ ,” Peter said, as if I had any goddamn clue who that was, “A bit contradictory perhaps, but I’ve heard of much stranger things than a thief being a hero.”

“What?” I countered, resistant to the positive spin, “Like a detective being a mystery?

Peter hummed, but there was something uneasy behind his calm manner, “Well, if you insist, I suppose.”

I scoffed at his evasive answer, “Why should I listen to you? Why should I even  _ care _ what you think of me? You think telling the truth sounds like  _ torture! _ ”

Peter rolled his eyes, “Oh, not this again. I’m—”

“You’re not who you say you are!” I snarled, half-surprised I couldn’t see the marionette strings twisted around his slender fingers.

His face remained a mask of serenity, but there was something like panic in his dark beautiful eyes, “And you are, Ms. Lovejoy?” he demanded evenly, “Or is it darling Regina Cobalt today? Or, nay, the most creative yet, Dr. Bruno Alloy?”

I growled, “You don't have a leg to stand on,  _ Rexie-poo! _ ” One dark eyebrow twitched, “Are you even a detective? Are you even  _ Peter goddamn Ransom _ ?” That was what did it, that was when I saw the color drain from his face and I knew that I had him, my voice coarse as I demanded, “What’s your real name, Cupid Steel?”

The mask cracked. It cracked and it broke open, and I glimpsed terror and loss and loneliness on his face. 

And then my eyes were stabbed by a flash of plasma, Peter’s chest absorbing a blue blast that sailed clear over my shoulder. My reflexes had always been fast, but not fast enough. Not fast enough for Benten, not fast enough for Peter, and in that moment, not near fast enough for me. I felt the familiar grip of my blaster, tucked away beneath my lab coat, but as my hand closed around it to pull it free as I turned on my heel, plasma-blue consumed my vision again.

And then darkness.


	9. Peter Ransom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone here for the truth serum tag, your time has finally come!
> 
> TWs for this chapter:  
> the inherent dubious consent of fantasy tech that makes you tell the truth  
> captivity/imprisonment  
> brief mention of suicidal ideation/self-destructiveness  
> brief sexism  
> brief strangulation  
> mention of intent to kill as revenge
> 
> also a good time to point out that Peter is trans in this story and I've stuck to masculine-coded terminology for his body as much as possible

My eyes opened unto a sight that struck dread into the space behind my ribs, more painful than the sizzling ache of a recent stun blast. Juno Steel lay before me, his face mere inches from my own. Beautiful, as he always was beautiful, but what sliced into the heart of me was the way he lay so lifelessly still, his eyes shut and a dark trickle of blood trailing from one nostril, staining the contour of his lips, “Juno,” I gasped out, desperate, “Don’t you dare be dead.”

Miraculously his brow creased and his lips moved, muttering out bitterly, “‘S’been a long time comin’.”

“What?” 

“It’s about damn time I kicked the…” Juno’s eyes shot open, pinning me with a look of petrifaction and bewilderment, “I didn't mean to tell you that, what the hell—”

“I couldn't bear a galaxy without you in it.” I interrupted fiercely, only to feel blood rush to my face at the declaration. It  _ was _ true, the vast universe would seem a ruthlessly cold and pointless place without the thief somewhere out there, but I had hardly ever allowed myself to  _ think it _ much less consider  _ saying it _ .

Juno’s eyes grew round, his face turning fully towards me, “You—?”

“Well, well,” we both stilled at the sound of another voice joining the conversation, “I suppose that little confession explains this unlikely partnership,” We both propped ourselves up to see the woman. My eyes found her — short blond hair, glasses, lab coat, just like in her picture on my comms — as she went on, “I didn’t think thieves and detectives liked to rub elbows.”

Her words and the jostling of Juno sitting up beside me drew my gaze down as our literal elbows bumped together. My eyes zeroed in on the gunmetal cuff around my left wrist, the thick cord that attached it to its twin, locked around Juno’s right wrist. There was only one thing it could be. As much as my head was spinning with the predicament my thief and I had found ourselves in, I had the wherewithal at least to ensure that my comms earpiece was still in place. With my unrestrained hand I inconspicuously prompted it to begin recording under the guise of pushing my hair from my eyes.

Juno lifted his right hand, pulling my left off the ground, “If these are what I think they are—” he began fearfully, angrily. The two emotions seemed always hand-in-hand in him.

“What, thief?” Marlena Verdrücken — for it was our mark who had now become our captor — needled, “Scared of a little heart-to-heart?”

“Yes, actually,” Juno said without hesitation, immediately floundering, “I-I mean,  _ shit. _ I—”

“Just don't speak, Juno, the  _ ultra mendacium _ —” I began.

“I know what it is, don’t talk down to me.” Juno growled.

“That was never my intention,” I insisted honestly, undermining all my efforts to push him away all morning, “I only—”

“Enough.” Marlena intervened impatiently, “Save your lover’s quarrel,” her attention shifted solely to me, “I’m a little surprised to see you under his spell, detective Ransom, you seemed too smart for that,” she remarked, her tone growing bitter, “But I thought I was, too.” 

“I tried to resist him,” I confided, at the same instant that Juno scoffed out, “He’s not  _ under my spell— _ ” 

Juno’s eyes sought mine, but I avoided meeting them, “Wait,  _ what _ _?_ What do you mean you—”

“Don’t waste your time, PI,” Marlena advised me, walking a few steps around the perimeter of the small windowless room, “The thief betrayed me, and he’ll betray you too. Just like my Chip…” her mouth bent into a sneer, “What is it about  _ men _ ,” she wondered aloud, out-dated and plainly embittered, “Are they all traitors at heart?” 

“Strictly speaking, I’m not a ‘man’,” Juno said, “Oversimplifying the—” 

“Shut up, traitor!” Marlena hissed. 

“Trust me,” Juno said around a nervous laugh, “I would really  _ love to _ but your stupid cuffs mean I have to be  _ honest _ .” 

“They don’t require you to  _ speak _ , thief.” She jerked her head at me, “Take your lovelorn detective’s advice and keep your pretty mouth shut.”

“ _ Lovelorn _ ?” I repeated, incredulous at the choice of word. I would not deny the pull that Juno had for me, but  _ lovelorn _ was stretching the truth obscenely, “I’m not—” I insisted, only to be silenced by an increasing pressure around my neck, an obstruction of my throat that choked my attempts to draw breath.

“Peter?” Juno’s hands cupped my face — rough, warm palms against my cheeks — the cuffs dragging my right hand up to my own chest. Juno’s face hovered over mine, sick with worry, before turning on Marlena, “What are you doing to him? Stop it! I-I need you to stop hurting him!”

Marlena tutted, unmoved, “It will only hurt him if he tries to tell lies.”

As I admired the cut of Juno’s jaw, the wet shine of his lips, the desperate need to protect me writ large on his face, so close to mine, it occurred to me,  _ perhaps I am lovelorn after all _ . And no sooner had I thought it than the pressure lifted quite suddenly, allowing me to gulp in great gasps of air, “I’m alright,” I assured him, lifting my hand from my chest to cover his where it still cradled my jaw, “You need not worry, Juno.”

“I wasn’t—” Juno coughed slightly, before his cheeks darkened and he admitted, “Okay, so I was worried.”

A double-beep from Marlena’s comms drew both of our attention away from each other. She looked down her nose at us, disdainful, “I have other matters to attend to,” she said, heading for the door, “I’ll come check your vitals before I leave for the day.”

“You plan to keep us alive then?” Juno asked, a little too eagerly.

Marlena’s gaze somehow grew colder still, “I don’t much care if you live or die here, thief.”

“I suppose you wouldn’t,” I found myself saying, untangling myself from Juno enough to sit up, seeking some modicum of dignity, “We are not the ones you want dead.”

Marlena smiled, impressed but joyless, “Clever detective,” she noted, “I don’t care if you die, except that I want to be absolutely sure that my invention works.”

“Of course,” I said. Thankfully, I was truly impressed by her ingenuity, even if I detested her goals. If not for that genuine admiration, surely the cuffs would have resumed choking me rather than allow me to coax out her confession, “You are nothing if not thorough, and you wouldn’t want to go to all that trouble only to have it fail.”

“Precisely,” she boasted, “Once I get a pair of my little bracelets onto my ungrateful Chip and Anala, that will be it for them. No more lies, no more—” her comms beeped again and she made a sour face at the interruption before sighing, “I have to go, maybe you’ll live long enough to see me again.” she opened the door, turning back to us with an unhinged smile and adding, “Don’t forget, honesty is the best policy.” before leaving, the door shutting with a click.

My unfettered hand fumbled my comms out of my pocket, hurrying to direct the recording I’d just taken. Juno sighed out, “That woman’s a lunatic.”

“I happen to concur, dear thief,” I said, “It’s a good thing she can look forward to a visit from the HCPD before too long.”

“What makes you so sure?” Juno asked, dubious, “They’re not exactly vigilant.”

“I’ve just sent a recording of that conversation to several officers with whom I’ve conducted business before,” I explained, “A confession of a crime she intends to commit should be enough to at least get someone’s attention.”

“You’re brilliant.” Juno said, without an instant’s hesitation.

It caught me off guard.  _ ‘Not too shabby’ _ was the highest praise I’d ever heard from the prickly thief’s lips until then. It was not his custom to compliment lavishly, least of all when the recipient had been treating him as shamefully as I had for the last twenty-odd hours, “Oh,” I stammered, “Um. Well…” 

“It would be a waste for someone as sharp as you to die here,” Juno said with a grimace, rattling the handcuffs that bound us together, “Stuck with me like this.”

It pained me that he could talk like that without the throttling function of Marlena’s device intervening, as I surmised that meant he believed it to be the truth, “It would be an honor to die at your side, Juno,” I confessed, uneasy at the unadorned honesty of my words. I managed to pivot the topic before our sincerity could lead us any further off course, “But I’d actually rather both of us go on living for some time, if it’s all the same to you.” Juno chuckled nervously, peering at me with an odd glint in his eye. “What?” I asked.

“It’s just a little weird,” he said, “To see you so… ya know, honest.”

“The same could be said of you, dear thief,” I replied, “But I’m not sure it suits me as handsomely as it does you.” I was painfully conscious of how vulnerable my dearly-guarded secrets were as long as this cuff stayed locked on my wrist. Handsome it would be, indeed, to have six years of careful lying unravel in a matter of minutes.

Juno shook his head, blue eyes slipping away from my face, “No, it’s... good. I like honest you.”

That was more than my poor mortal heart could take. Maybe I couldn’t lie, but I  _ could _ at least dodge, as it turned out, “Come on,” I urged, climbing to my knees and tugging Juno’s wrist to get him to stand alongside me, “Let’s get out of here.”

“Right,” Juno said, his sharp mind snapping back to the task at hand, “It sounded like the door has an analog lock,” he said as we reached it, bending down to examine the doorknob, “Yeah, should be easy enough to pick, even from the inside.”

“You can recognize an analog lock by ear?” I asked. I was a more-than-adequate picker of locks myself, but that was a particular skill I could not claim.

Juno shrugged, “I grew up with them…” he said, his mouth flattening into a thin line as if he was stifling the urge to say more. As it was, the explanation only brought with it more questions. He kneeled and I joined him on the floor again, to keep our joined wrists from hampering his lockpicking efforts. He kept his eyes trained on the door and his voice even as he remarked, “I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“Uncomfortable?” I said, coughing slightly around the word, a reminder of sorts that I best not attempt to deny it outright.

“Yeah,” Juno said, glancing my way as he fished an old-fashioned Terran lockpick from a pocket with his unencumbered hand, “You know, ‘bout the honesty. That I think it suits you.” He began prodding inside the lock, admitting, “It  _ does  _ suit you, but I didn't mean to weird you out.”

“Oh, that's…” I tried not to smile, “Well, that’s alright. Thank you.” Juno nodded and fell into silence, concentrating on the task at hand. He leaned his left ear against the door and his eyes fell shut, dark lashes casting feathered shadows over the scar that crossed the bridge of his nose. His eyelids fluttered slightly as he wiggled the pick and listened to the tiny clicks it made against the pegs within the lock, his brows furrowed and lips parted, the tip of his tongue pressed against his teeth in focus. My eyes traced the square line of his jaw again, the softness of the curls that tumbled over his forehead, the slightly crooked line of a nose that had certainly been broken at least once. His face was a contradiction, much like the lady himself. There were as many soft lines as there were hard ones, scarred and perfect all at once. Of course, he could pick a lock by ear, Juno Steel was nothing if not full of surprises, “You look good doing that.”

I might not have even realized I’d said it aloud had Juno not snorted a laugh and peeked one eye open, “Good?” he taunted, “All those goddamn four syllable words you love to throw around, and here I am, heroically busting us out of captivity, and ‘good’ is the best you got for me?”

I shook my head, and amended, “You look confident. Unfazed, capable. Savvy,” I rattled off, the words spilling from my tongue with eager honesty as Juno’s eyes squeezed shut and the color rose in his cheeks, pressing his ear harder to the door as if he were still thinking about the lock at all, “Not to mention dashing. Ravishing,” Honesty, I was beginning to discover, was rather like a runaway train, nearly impossible to stop once it gathered some speed, “Breathtaking… tantalizing…” Juno’s teeth tugged nervously at his lip, “Sexy.”

That last elicited a small sound from Juno, something between a groan and a whine that I  _ needed  _ to hear again, “You’re embarrassing me.” He grumbled, through lips that seemed determined to curl up at the corners.

“You’re smiling.” I observed, and asked more bluntly that I normally would have dared, voice low, “Do you like to be embarrassed?”

“A little,” Juno admitted in a mumble, “It’s not bad when it’s you.”

The confession punched a small gasp out of me, and it dragged out with it a confession of my own, “Dear me,” I swore, “I need to kiss you, Juno.”

Juno’s breath stuttered and he lifted his cheek from the door to face me. Intelligent blue eyes searched my face, looking for clues or answers or perhaps just ogling as I had done, “You  _ need  _ to?” he asked, cocking his head slightly to the left.

“I like the way it’s made you look at me.” 

Juno looked even more embarrassed at that, but his eyes did not stop their curious scanning of my visage, “How’s that?”

“As though I were a puzzle in need of solving,” I glanced at the waiting doorknob, as I went on honestly, “Or perhaps a lock you’re going to pick.”

“You said you  _ need  _ to,” Juno gave a curious huff. He rattled our handcuffs, “Turns out hyperbole isn’t off limits, at least.”

“Oh,” I acknowledged, “I suppose you’re right.”

“Maybe,” he said, biting his lip again before saying, “Oooor… maybe it’s not hyperbole?”

I gave a breathless laugh, the tentative smile on the thief’s face — like the barest hint of a spark, hoping that a breath of oxygen may allow it to burn — making it difficult to think straight, “Whatever do you mean, Juno?”

He shrugged, “I… maybe it’s… true?” he suggested, the hoarseness of his tone sending heat slithering down my spine, “Th-that we need it?”

_ We.  _ The word seemed to suck all the air from my chest and my voice barely broke a whisper as I pressed him, “You... you need me to kiss you?”

A wrecked chuckle of a laugh escaped Juno, his eyes glued to mine as he whispered, devastatingly honest, “Only more than I’ve ever needed anything in my whole sorry goddamn life.”

I had always considered myself a man of formidable will. A consummate professional. A man not easily tempted or tricked or drawn astray from his mission. As a thief, then as a detective, my ability to focus on only what was immediate and pertinent had kept me alive more times that I could count. And yet… how could I deny him, and in so doing deny myself? If I could blow on that beautiful spark and have the fire burn bright and warm for the both of us… how could I hoard my air to myself? It had little savor to me on its own, alone. 

Juno’s eyes implored me, but my gaze slid down to his mouth. His plush lower lip was wet and pink where his teeth had worried at it. And my willpower — impressive though it was — was no match for my desire. I could call myself by a different name, but Peter Nureyev would always be a thief at heart. And when I saw something as pretty and tempting and priceless as Juno Steel, begging to be stolen, there was no other course for me but to take him.

I crushed my lips to his before I could even close my eyes, witnessing his eyes fluttering shut and his brow creasing with need before my lids closed. He was as soft as my memory of his kiss, softer still. I could just taste the sweetness of him and I needed more, licking into his mouth and chasing more of that elusive taste of home, as dark and mysterious as it was intoxicatingly sweet. He moaned as I deepened the kiss, his tongue delving into my mouth like a man starving. The stubble on his chin rasped against my skin as I angled my head, my teeth scraping just slightly against his lips. I felt him shiver and I wanted to feel it again and again and again. 

And then, quite suddenly, I felt the lurch in my stomach of balance lost, followed by the sensation of my back colliding with the floor. Juno had wrapped himself around me and toppled us to the ground. I chuckled slightly into the sweet wet heat of his kiss, melting at his laugh echoing my own. I didn’t know if it had been his intention or a moment of clumsiness, but I had no complaints either way as his strong thick thighs bracketed my hips and my free hand found the small of his back to press him closer. My head spun as if I was drunk, and I suppose I was, after a fashion. Drunk on unchecked honesty after a lifetime of play pretend. Drunker still on Juno Steel, on the feel of him, soft and hot, muscle and fat and so much delicious substance to dig my fingers into. He whimpered onto my tongue at the feel of my tightening grip, and it was the sweetest and headiest of spirits I’d ever drank.

My left hand tangled in the mess of his curls, his right hand pressed to my jaw, the rough pad of his thumb brushing my cheekbone and just barely ghosting across my eyelashes. The handcuff between us felt less like a shackle and more like an anchor, a lifeline, honesty in every touch of our hands, in the ardent thirst of our kisses. For a time I lost myself to it, the perfection of it nearly wiping all else from my mind. Why bother escaping, when in this room Juno and I could tangle together, all honesty and want, obstacles tearing away like wet paper? Why should I want to escape this, when I could finally taste home again, better than the memory, more dizzying and delicious than all the times I’d relived our kiss under my own slick touch because it was  _ real _ ?

As ever, though, my mind had to throw the truth at me, had to remind me of the dangers and the responsibility and the risk, “We,” I managed regretfully, between Juno’s heated kisses, “We need to,” his lips left mine, only to map a searing line along my jaw, “We,  _ Juno _ — need to get out,” his teeth scraped just beneath my ear, “ _ Oh. _ Out, out of here.”

Juno hummed against the racing pulse in my throat as if considering my words, “But I need you,” he mumbled, mouth wet against my throat as his hips pressed to mine, the hard line of his erection sliding against my thigh, “I need to feel all of you.”

_ “Oh, _ ” I groaned, my body following Juno’s lead without awaiting my permission, my hips rising towards his in search of friction, “ _ Yes, _ ” I sighed at the feel of him, even through all our clothes, “That sounds good, too…” I mumbled inanely as I craned my head and stole his lips again.

Juno kissed with the same bewitching contradiction that he did everything else. His lips were soft as velvet but he kissed  _ hard _ , his tongue was hungry and yet always yielded to the press of my own, his hands were in my hair and on my waist and my hips but his grip was not bruising and desperate, but fluttering and reverent. As always the mystery of Juno Steel seemed to spiral beyond my understanding like an unfathomable fractal, and I wanted to map out every curve and wrinkle of its sacred cartography. One slow grind of the lady’s hips had his cock sliding slow against mine through our clothes and it was too much. The sharpness of my teeth pressed into the softness of his mouth and he swore,  _ “Fuck.” _

I took the opportunity to do as he had done. I wasn’t sure when the fingers of my free right hand had buried themselves in his hair but I tugged just enough to bare his throat to me and kissed under his jaw, the warmth and smell of him there spinning my head, “ _ Peter _ ,” he sighed and it was like fire in my veins as I scraped my teeth over his pulse, “Shit,” he said, followed by a disjointed chuckle, “Shit,  _ shit _ , we…” he pulled back from me and even the barest distance between us smarted. It must have been the same for him, judging by his pained expression, “We really do need to get the hell out of here.”

“Yeah,” I panted in agreement, trying to take back control of my body and get my wits together. Hard to do, when Juno had not halted the slow grind of his hips against mine. I untangled my hand from his hair and placed it on his hip to still his movement, eyes widening at what I felt beneath his lab coat. His lips were idly kissing my jaw again as my hand slid under his coat and confirmed what I felt there, “Forgive me, my dear, gorgeous, exquisite,  _ divinely _ irresistible thief,” I uttered, unable to reel in the confessions of my lust-loosened tongue under the influence of Verdrücken’s creation.

“Forgive you?” Juno smirked against my chin, “For what? Over-indulging in adjectives?”

“It is not my aim to c-call,” I stuttered as Juno sucked at the hollow of my throat, “Call your lock-picking virtuosity into question,” Juno sat back enough to peer down at me, his expression perplexed, “But could this blaster of yours not perhaps make quicker work of that lock?”

“Sure, if—” Juno blinked as his free hand covered mine on the handle of the blaster he’d tucked into his thigh holster that morning while I pretended not to watch, “She, she didn’t take my damn blaster?”

“It would appear not, Juno.” I said, “It is to our benefit, perhaps that Dr. Verdrücken is new to a life of crime.”

“Well, I’ll be…” Juno laughed as he sat upright, still straddling my lap and drew the blaster. It sat a little awkwardly in his left hand, but he expertly settled his grip and grinned down at me. I might have swooned a little at the sight of him, disheveled hair and bright eyes, lab coat falling off one shoulder, blaster cocked in one hand while the other rested on my waist, still cuffed to my own. He gave me a smug grin before turning and aiming a point-blank shot at the lock and pulling the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! We're at the part of this story that shoved its way into my brain and wouldn't let go!


	10. Juno Steel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWs for this chapter:  
> the inherent dubious consent of fantasy tech that makes you tell the truth  
> explicit sexual content (finally!)  
> dom/sub undertones  
> some ambiguously-gendered terms around Nureyev, everything is masculine-coded for the most part, this warning is mainly just for the terms 'facesitting' and 'eating out'  
> edging 👀  
> some good ole Juno Steel self-loathing sprinkled in there throughout

It was like something out of an action stream. Or, well, it would have been if not for my crummy lungs. Almost a third of the door had been blasted to kingdom come and the caustic fumes of the smoldering polymer had me hacking like an ancient combustion engine in Ransom’s lap. When I finally managed to suck in some real air, it dawned on me that he’d sat up, one arm curved around me to gently pat my back. It was a useless gesture, and it made my heart feel like it was melting into goop. Still shaking off the last of my coughs, I peeked at him, his face adorably tense with worry, “You’re adorable.” I told him hoarsely, without having had any intention of saying it out loud. I swear the damn handcuffs didn’t just make you  _ tell the truth _ , they made it damn hard to keep your thoughts inside your head where they belonged!

Ransom laughed. It was nothing at all like the fake tinkling-bell laughs I was used to from him — which could comfort or ensnare anyone with a pulse — but an absolutely wondrous  _ snort _ that made me want to get back to the steamy kisses of moments before. Before I could make good on that impulse, he kissed the corner of my mouth and I couldn’t tilt my head to deepen the kiss fast enough, before he was slipping from under me and climbing to his feet with altogether too much grace, folding our cuffed hands together, and pulling me up along with him. I blinked up at him as he carefully opened the still-smoking door. Somehow I’d nearly forgotten our height difference down on the ground, where it didn’t matter half so much as the spiciness of his smell and the sharpness of his teeth and the sweet sounds he made in his throat as our bodies rubbed together. But now… he looked back at me now, our linked hands stretched across the threshold, and he seemed further away than arm’s length. His glasses were not crooked, his hair still fell pretty neatly around his lean face, and if not for the slight color in his cheeks and the lovebites blooming on his neck, he would have looked all business, while I was dead sure I did not look so unruffled, “Come along, my thief,” he urged, with a slight tug to our cuffs as if it was a dog’s leash, “We best be on our way, don’t you agree?”

“Y-yeah,” I grumbled, following him into the hall, “Yeah, sure.” I coughed again, this time around an alien tightness in my throat, trying to give away how reluctant I was to leave behind the events in the room of our captivity.

“I wish I could offer you a moment’s repose,” Ransom said, his flowery way of talking softened by the imposed honesty of the cuffs, “But that blast wasn’t exactly quiet and it wouldn’t be wise of us to linger here any longer than absolutely necessary,” his clear, dark eyes met mine, “Are you alright?”

“I don’t need any stinking  _ repose _ ,” I said, a little gruff but unable to find fault with his reasoning, “Let’s go.” I took the lead, tugging him all of two steps before stopping as I looked around, “Hey, uh, Peter?”

“Yes, Juno?”

“Got any goddamn idea where we are?” The hall we stood in did not resemble the ones we’d been in earlier. It was narrower, with lower ceilings, lit only by a strip of sodium-orange along the ceiling’s edge. The door I’d blasted was the only one around, the hall coming to a dead end behind us and turning to the left ahead.

Ransom hummed, “No,” he said, “No idea whatsoever.”

“Got any helpful deductions for me, seeing as you’re the detective of our little outfit?” I asked. The words didn’t come off as snide as I’d normally have wanted them. It was hard not to sound earnest when you couldn’t be even a little dishonest.

He hummed again, swiveling to look around us, “I suppose we ought to go that way,” he said, pointing to the corner ahead of us, “Seeing as it's the only option available to us.”

I opened my mouth to say something else snide, but then Ransom smiled at me, small and hopeful, and perhaps the tightness of my throat wasn’t all due to the damn cuffs. I felt heat in my cheeks and cleared my throat, “Good plan,” I said, gesturing him forward with my free hand, “Lead the way?”

Ransom’s smile broadened and he gave something of a bow, “Oh, by all means,” he purred, “Ladies first.”

The place was deserted, not so much as a single snoozy security guard to be found. As we walked on in silence, I tried to figure out what this place was. It was likely some sort of maintenance tunnel, seldom used and, unfortunately for us, not marked for the convenience of everyday visitors. The first stairwell or elevator we came across would be our way out, but as yet there had just been walls and those orange lights. After some minutes like this, I couldn’t restrain a groan of frustration, unease bubbling like pitch in my stomach at feeling so  _ trapped _ .

“Take heart, dear thief,” Ransom encouraged, squeezing my hand, “Things are not so dire.”

I snorted, “I dunno, trapped in the bowels of a shady research facility with a deadly device locked around our wrists is kinda exactly what I’d call  _ dire _ , actually.”

Ransom hummed, “It’s not ideal, I agree,” he said, “But for all its deadliness, Verdrücken’s device doesn’t seem too eager to kill us.”

I looked at the cuffs around our wrists, the cord between, “That’s true,” I conceded, adding with a chuckle, “You know, I always thought I had trust issues, but this lady’s really next level. Do you think she realizes hubby and the new missus could stay alive just by like…  _ not _ lying?”

Ransom gave me a sharp sideways smile, “No, I don’t believe that she does.”

“I mean, look at us. We’re both pretty full of shit most of the time, and even _we_ haven’t lied ourselves to death yet.” I pointed out, feeling the heat rise in my cheeks at the thought of what we’d done instead.

Ransom didn’t bother to argue with my assessment that we were both full of shit, but chuckled. Then his smile fell, “I imagine,” he said haltingly, “That Dr. Verdrücken would see our response to the predicament as a sign that her prototype requires further tinkering, to ensure the outcome she desires.”

We fell silent for a while after that, and I looked the handcuffs over more thoroughly as we walked along. I examined the cuff around my wrist, finding no apparent seam where it opened or shut. It was a dark gunmetal — it looked like fairly standard Mercurial bronze, but I couldn’t be sure just by looking — with a thin ribbon of plasma running around the inner surface. The cord was wrapped in some kind of synthetic woven fiber, but I assumed it was to insulate the wires and plasma tube housed inside. I brought my wrist close to my face, squinting down at the ring of flexible material where the cord attached to the cuff, rotating my hand to get a look at all sides.

“Juno,” Ransom said, and I realized it wasn’t the first time he’d said it. I turned my attention to his face, finding a bemused expression, “I hate to interrupt your investigation,  _ detective _ .” he said, with a teasing lilt.

I rolled my eyes, “Then maybe  _ don’t  _ interrupt it,  _ detective _ ?”

“I thought you might be interested to know we’ve found a set of stairs.” True enough, Peter’s free hand was held out, presenting a doorway to stairs going  _ up _ .

“ _ Finally, _ ” I sighed, relief suffusing the word, “Let’s get out of this place.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” we started up the stairs. They were narrow and dusty, corroborating my suspicion that this route was little-used and not intended for the public. They stretched up above us several stories, with little landings every dozen steps and just the ideal amount of dim orange lights to maximize the casting of spooky shadows. I startled slightly when Peter’s voice broke the silence again, “So, did your investigation elucidate anything before I so rudely interrupted you?”

“Yeah, actually,” I said and Peter raised his eyebrows at me, “I never got her that unpickable lock she wanted, so the sealing mechanism’s gotta be this thing’s Achilles heel,” Peter nodded, lips twitching upwards slightly. I picked up my hand again, using my left index finger to indicate the flexible polymer border I’d been looking at earlier, “This spot here, or the same on your side… there’s no  _ lock _ , but that seems like the weak spot,” Peter nodded his understanding, as I speculated, “I guess maybe I could bust it with my blaster, but it’d be sorta like trying to slice bread with a butcher knife.”

Ransom grimaced, “I’m inclined to veto that approach. I try to keep my appendages away from blasters and butcher’s knives alike, when I can help it, and I rather like that hand in one piece.”

“I like it, too.” I replied, that weird honesty slipping off my tongue again.

If it bothered Peter at all, he did nothing to indicate it, his slender fingers caressing mine thoughtfully for a moment before he said, “To tell you the truth, Juno—”

“As if you have a choice—” I pointed out.

“I don’t hate this predicament.” he went on, his fingers slipping between mine again, fitting there so easily.

“You... don't?” I prompted.

“Well,” Peter cast his gaze a bit sourly around the dark stairwell, “I confess I don't much like being underground for so long, and being honest frankly terrifies—” he stopped, looking down at our hands with a careful, tender look on his face, “But… as for the handcuffs… well, it is rather an extreme measure to go to, really, but…” he glanced back at me through his lashes and even in the dim, his eyes were so clear, “It’s nice to know you aren’t going to disappear on me again.”

I had almost forgotten, given the events since we got to the lab, about how hurt and angry Ransom had been the previous night when I’d showed back up at his apartment. How cold and professional he had been this very morning. Now I could see it as if it were written right there across his forehead, that there was real hurt there. “It wasn’t personal, Peter,” I told him, squeezing his hand tight, “You have to know that. It’s the nature of my work not to stick around after I swipe something.”

“When trouble arises, you disappear.” Peter muttered, shrugging one shoulder. The words seemed familiar, though I couldn’t quite place where I’d heard them before.

“Yeah,” I said, “I guess you could put it that way…” he nodded and I hated the resignation I saw on his face in the orange glow when we turned onto a landing, “But ya know, I…” I wet my lips, unable to hold back the honesty scraping its way out of me, “When I left, I… it was supposed to just be  _ a job _ , but it… it didn't only hurt you, Peter.”

“What?” he halted. He’d already lifted a foot to place it on the next step, but he lowered it back to the ground, turning to face me head on. One brow arched, skeptical and I would have sworn  _ hopeful, _ “You expect me to believe that you— I—” it was unusual seeing him fumble his words, he was usually so infuriatingly articulate. At last, he sputtered out, disbelieving, “That I, what,  _ haunted  _ you? That you were out there,” an expansive gesture with his free hand, indicating space, “Thieving and traversing the stars, hung up on  _ me _ ?”

“Basically,” I said with a sheepish shake of my head, “I couldn’t get the smell of you out of my damn nose for weeks.”

“The… my  _ smell _ ?” Peter’s head cocked to one side like a curious cat.

“Sure,” I said, the confessions spilling out of me like marbles from a torn pocket, rolling away from me before I could catch them, sure to trip me if I stepped wrong, “Your smell, your teeth when you smile,” he did, only slightly and on cue the sight of them made my heart race, “Your mind, your  _ goddamn _ eyes,” Peter took a step closer and there was barely a breath of space between us as he looked down at me, captivated. I could feel the warmth of his body, and my voice took on a breathless, reverent tone as the truth continued to roll free of my grasp, “The sound of your voice, the taste of your lips when we kissed, wondering whether you always tasted as good as that—that weird liquor we were—”

“Pewterfruit brandy,” Ransom said, leaning in just near enough that I could feel his breath on my cheeks, “From Brahma.”

“Yeah, that,” I said, “I craved it so bad I thought I’d die of thirst.” I’d wondered where he was from in the Outer Rim, his accent impossible to pin down. Brahma, then. It was ironic to think I’d craved him and that drink so desperately, not knowing they were from Brahma, even when I’d been on Brahma myself. I probably could have walked into one of those roofless bars and ordered a glass, though it never could have satisfied the yearning for the man himself. 

It was strange to picture him there, though if he’d grown up there it was most likely he’d had his first taste of liquor in a place like that, in full view of the Guardian Angel System back in the more trigger happy days I’d only heard talked about. I didn’t like it, the thought of him living like the people I knew there, fearful and hungry as street dogs, living off the scraps thrown to them from above and trying to avoid a swift kick from a laserbeam. It was hard to reconcile the suave, quick-witted detective with all that, until I thought of his anger, his sense of honor and fairness that carried echoes of the quiet righteous whispers of Brahma’s citizens. He had accused me of having morals, but this kernel of information gave new meaning to his own moral streak. Of course,  _ of course _ , he would have a moral streak and a sense for vigilantism, when he came from Brahma; Brahma who rallied around that old security feed — distorted by being copied and compressed and amplified a million times over — with a warning given to their oppressors by a protector no one had seen or heard from in years, a faceless savior of mythic proportions whose name was scrawled in graffiti on half the walls in the shadow of New Kinshasa.

“Why,” Peter said, breaking me from my rapid-fire thoughts of his home planet, “Who knew the crass thief could talk so beautifully?” And I forgot all about Brahma and its corruption. I forgot all about it’s mysterious Angel, and its strange, sweet brandy and thought only of those lips, so close to mine, the only thing that might slake my thirst.

“Please.” I sighed, eyes fluttering.

“Please what?” Peter asked softly and I nearly died of desire.

“I’m still thirsty,” I said, stupidly, desperately, “Kiss me.”

He did. It had not been long since we’d busted out of the room where Verdrücken had stashed us, but it already felt like years since I’d had Peter Ransom’s mouth on mine. He didn’t taste like the Brahmese pewterfruit brandy — obviously, poetic as that notion was, it was not how mouths worked — but sweeter still. His lips parted against mine and his tongue danced along mine, graceful as the rest of him. His hand cupped my cheek and I strained towards the encompassing, enticing warmth of him, stretching onto the tips of my toes to deepen the kiss.

And wobbled.

Peter caught me, his free arm wrapping around my waist before I could make a total ass of myself by falling, “That good?” he asked, with a cocky smirk.

“Yes.” I said, pressing another kiss to his smiling lips.

“Let’s be more careful, then,” he murmured as he lowered me to the floor, leaning back to meet my eyes, he asked, “Is this alright?”

“Yes,” I said again through a disbelieving laugh — as if there was any world where I was not okay with this gorgeous man gently laying me down as if I were something  _ fragile _ — before the dusty feeling of the floor beneath me reminded me where we were, “It’s great but… shouldn't we be running away?”

“We’ll hear them a mile away in these stairs.” Peter reassured me, and judging by the way his soft voice echoed through the floors above and below us, and my general desire to keep doing exactly what we were doing, I could find no fault in his reasoning. To show my agreement, I gave the lapels of his lab coat a sharp tug and brought his mouth back down to mine.

Peter Ransom kissed with a thorough care I had never experienced in any other lover. There had certainly been plenty of them, and though some of them had made my head spin with a clever curl of their tongue, no one had ever kissed me like Peter did. It was as though I was some complicated thing he wanted to disassemble and he knew precisely how to do it. He was eager, but not rushed; confident, but not showy. In all my fantasies, he had never so easily gathered such complete control of me. It was like nothing else. 

When his lips left mine to nibble along my jaw, I was panting and I was hard as hell in my jeans, “Oh, Juno,” he cooed into my ear, voice deep and warm and low, making my stomach twist with desire, “What do you want? Only tell me and it’s yours.”

“I-I want you to touch me.” I breathed out, my hips grinding against his to chase the modicum of relief I could get that way.

Peter’s voice was sly as he spread the fingers that were splayed against my side, “I  _ am _ touching you.” he pointed out.

“No,” I whined, the honesty just pouring right out of me, “I want you to  _ really  _ touch me,” Peter’s mouth was wet and his teeth were sharp against the pulse beneath my ear, “N-no clothes, no bullshit, just  _ us _ , our skin. Shit,” my voice hitched as he nipped at my throat, “I want to  _ feel _ you.”

“Oh, Juno…” he purred into my ear, his voice melting along my spine.

“Do whatever you want to me, I’m—” I managed to stop myself before I went and exposed everything I thought about alone in bed with my thoughts full of his sharp smile. A different truth escaped instead, “I’m  _ yours.” _

Peter growled, “You want me to have my way with you, Juno?” the words made me shiver intensely and I nodded along, struck dumb by the sight of Ransom’s hand trailing away from my waist in favor of my groin, as he confessed in a tone of rapt amazement, “I admit that has been the shape of my fantasies, ever since I first put those handcuffs on your wrists to turn you in,” those long pale fingers deftly popped the button and parted the zipper, and I sighed at the relief of pressure on my erection, “I wished even then that I had been putting them on you to a different end.”

I gave a strangled chuckle, “If you h-have a thing for cuffs,” I gave a light tug of my left hand, resting on his shoulder, “This must be doing it for you big-time.”

Peter lifted his head to grin at me sharply, “I won’t deny having a ‘thing’ for restraining my lovers, but the cuffs were not the cause of my passion,” with a neat swivel of his wrist, his hand was inside my underwear, wrapping around me with a feather-light touch and eliciting a hiss, “Not then,” he said, fingers twisting around me with maddening delicacy, “And not now. It’s about  _ you _ , Juno,” I opened my eyes, not sure when I’d closed them, to find his eyes already trained rapturously on my face, “You, at my mercy. Every last exquisite inch of you,” his hand slid slowly from root to tip to accentuate his meaning, “All that magnificent fierceness of yours tamed by my touch…”

“Peter!” I gasped as his thumb brushed over my tip, the small touch like a plasma-shock.

Peter ground down against my thigh and he whimpered, shaking his head, “No, you’re right, Juno. Not  _ tamed _ . In truth, I have no wish to tame you, my thief,” his dark eyes blazed with desire as his hand made another slow twist up my length, “Only to see if pleasure and abandon shine as beautifully on you as all that fierceness does.”

“Peter,  _ please _ .” I pleaded, rendered totally unable to bluff by the combination of the cuff on my right wrist and Peter’s teasing touch and words, “Please,  _ oh.” _

“You beg more wonderfully than my wildest imaginings, Juno,” Peter praised, rubbing himself against my leg a little harder and faster, but keeping his touch on me exasperatingly light and slow, “Though I don’t know what it is you’re begging for.” he said leadingly.

“More,” I gasped out, “And— let me touch you too,  _ please _ . Want to touch you, make you feel — _ ah! _ — good!”

Peter had the nerve to  _ chuckle _ , “Oh,” he said, voice breathy with apparent pleasure, “Oh, have no doubt, Juno, I feel  _ so _ good,”  _ Fuck _ , I was sure he did and I wanted to see for myself already, “Rubbing myself on your leg like—”

“ _ Fuck _ ,” I interrupted, impatience finally tipping into frustration, “Do you  _ always _ talk this much in bed or only when there’s an experimental truth thingy on your arm?”

Peter laughed deep in his throat, “Well, Juno, we’re not exactly in bed,” I growled, “But I do see your point,” he dragged himself along me slow and hard, hand tightening around me as he did, “Perhaps you’d prefer it if I used your face the way I’m presently using your thigh?”

A pathetic whine escaped me, my mouth watering at the thought, “Please, oh Peter, please,” the words tripped out of my mouth, eager as anything, my hips bucking up into his hand, “Please, I bet you taste like  _ goddamn heaven, _ like every feel-good drug in the galaxy all rolled in honey and brandy and—”

“My, now look who’s talkative!” Peter remarked.

“ _ Please _ ,” My voice cracked on the word, my arousal and frustration stabbing oddly at my heart, a sudden twist of rejection and worry as to  _ why _ he was making me wait, and did I even deserve what I was begging for in the first place? “Sit on my face, I-I _swear_ I’ll make you feel good, I’ll  _ be _ good, I won’t disappoint you, just  _ please— _ ”

Peter stilled against me and  _ shit _ , if I only could keep my thoughts to myself right now, I wouldn’t have just reminded him of all my flaws. I squeezed my eyes shut, unwilling to see the desire dashed from his expression, “Juno,” he said, his voice surprising me with its tender tone, “You could  _ never  _ disappoint me, Juno.”

“I already  _ have _ ,” I pointed out, cringing with chagrin and keeping my eyes shut tight, “I did when I left—”

“That?” Peter said, a soft hand cupping my cheek, “When it came right down to it, Juno, I mostly just missed you.” I peeked one eye open, as if there was any need to gauge his honesty, “You were the first thing I had encountered in so very long that held any excitement or interest for me and then you were just gone.” he leaned down and kissed me, slow and soft and achingly honest, “Do you believe me?”

“Yeah,” I said, “Yes. I’m sorry for getting all—” I groaned, “I want you so bad.”

“And I want you,” he agreed, his voice still gentle and words chosen with care, “In truth, Juno, there is nothing in the galaxy I would relish more than to sit on your face, but only if you’re truly alright?”

“It just, the teasing got to be too much,” I explained, “I got tripped up on, on it. Forgot it was a… game.” I frowned, double-checking timidly, “It _was_ a game, right?”

“Of course,” Peter confirmed, “I had every intention of giving you anything and everything you wanted, and I never would have laid a finger on you had it been otherwise.”

I let out a relieved sigh, “Okay, okay, then, yeah, I’m good.” He raised an eyebrow at me, “I literally  _ cannot _ bullshit you right now, don’t give me that look! My head’s a little spinny but I think that’s mainly ‘cause all my blood is in my dick. I’ll be a lot more not-okay if you don’t get up here and give me something better to do with my mouth than be way more honest than I wanna be!”

Peter appeared to contemplate that for a second before giving in at last. He pulled away from me with some reluctance, but I didn’t mind, watching hungrily as he discarded his lab coat, then revealed those impossibly long legs of his as he removed his pants, my own hand dragged this way and that by the cuffs that connected us. In the acoustics of the stairwell, I could have sworn I heard the wet sound as his briefs pulled away from his body and just the thought made my cock twitch with desire. He knelt beside me and we shared one more deep kiss before he straddled my face. Our cuffed hands tangled together and he gave mine three quick squeezes, “If you’d like to stop for any reason.” I hummed my agreement and gave his hand three squeezes to show I understood, “Good girl.” he said and I melted beneath him.

And then my senses were full of him, I was half-drunk on the smell of him alone. With the flat of my tongue, I cleaned the slick from his inner thighs, delighting in the taste of his skin and his soft sighs of my name, “Juno,” he murmured, “You’re so good,” and hearing that, I couldn’t stand delaying a second longer. I covered his hard dick with my mouth, and he gave a spectacular moan. His weight settled onto my face more, “Juno,  _ yes _ , marvelous, _ ohh, _ you’re wonderful...” he praised as I sucked and swirled my tongue around his dick, my nose nudging his hole with every lick and press of my mouth.

Just as it occurred to me that I could probably come this way, just from listening to him and tasting him, he shifted against me and his hand wrapped around my cock again. I moaned around him and he shuddered at the vibration of my voice, “Yes, that’s it,” he coaxed, “Be a good girl for me and let me hear how much you love it.” I moaned again as his hand stroked me faster, lubricated plenty by the precum that had been leaking from me since he laid me on the floor. I was surprised how fast I was nearly there, my tongue faltering against him as it approached.

Only for his hand to fall still and slack. I cried out against him, “Not yet, my dear thief,” he scolded, voice a little hoarse as he ground down over my open mouth and chin, “And I don’t remember telling you to stop.”

That kickstarted my tongue and I began eating him out with renewed fervor, my hips humping hopefully into his hand as sweet sounds of pleasure dropped from his mouth, “ _ Yes _ , yes, that’s it, good—  _ ah! _ Good girl, Juno…” I moaned with relief as he began stroking me again, his clever hand twisting around the head just right to pull me closer and closer to the edge again. 

I focused on his pleasure this time, sucking and licking him as if he was my first meal after years of fasting. Still, it did not catch me off-guard this time when his hand pulled back from me, just as my balls tightened and I teetered to the edge. A cry of despair escaped me, flush against his slick hot flesh, and, “ _ Ah _ ,” he gasped out, “S-soon, Juno, m-my  _ goddess _ .” 

I shuddered at the adoration in his voice, how he really seemed to mean what he said. I knew where my name came from but it had always seemed like a joke until I heard Peter Ransom’s lust-rough voice wrap around the word. I sucked his dick more insistently, “ _ Juno, _ ” he moaned, grinding against me with erratic snaps of his hips, “Yes,  _ yes, _ ” his hand closed around me again, stroking hard and fast and perfect, “With me, love, I’m so— ah! With- me—” his words gave way to a yell that shook me to my core, my own release going through me like an electrical current as Ransom’s cock twitched on my tongue and his thighs trembled against my cheeks, the taste of him flooding my mouth.

I felt oddly bereft as he clambered off of me to collapse at my side. Some mad impractical part of me wished I could keep my face buried between his legs forever, his praise making me feel as good and useful as I had ever felt in my life. I shut my eyes and absently wiped some of the mess from my face, and focused on catching my breath.


	11. Peter Nureyev

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, you read that chapter title correctly. More truth serum confessions lie ahead, traveler.
> 
> TWs for this one:  
> Peter briefly thinks that the sex in the previous chapter might not have been consensual  
> discussion of matricide/patricide  
> reluctant discussion of Peter's backstory

As I regained control of my faculties, I became increasingly aware of how many minutes had gone by without either myself or Juno making a sound. I turned to look at the lady beside me. Juno’s eyes were closed, the sheen of my slick on his chin catching the sheen of the orange lights, his breath still returning to a normal rhythm, “Why, Juno,” I said, feeling a little giddy from our lovemaking, “A rare event; we appear to have rendered each other speechless.”

Juno laughed, “Do you know what that word means?” His teasing tone was not rude as it usually would have been, and the grin lingered on his face. His smiles were usually so fleeting, blunted at the edges by doubt or irritation, but this one shone with all the promise of the first fire mankind had kindled back in the ancient caves of Earth.

I sighed like a schoolgirl, “Yours must be the prettiest smile in the galaxy.” I said, words doing no justice to the sight before me, my fingertips trailing along the palm of Juno’s right hand, where our shackled wrists rested between us.

Juno snorted, “Nah,” he said, his eyes glinting, “Second best, that honor belongs to—” the smile was wiped suddenly from his face and his fingers spasmed where our hands lay together.

“Juno?” I had thought for a second that this jovial, post-coital Juno would be corny and insist that it was in fact  _ I _ who had the best smile, but that Juno had quite suddenly disappeared. He was replaced by a frowning counterpart, guilt and frustration writ large in every line of his posture.

“Get dressed, Ransom,” he said, and I felt a pang in my chest to hear my alias’ name in his mouth again, so suddenly brusque, “We should get a move on.”

Tender feelings aside, I could not disagree with him on that and pulled my pants and lab coat back on with as much speed and dignity as I could muster. We got to our feet and returned to our climb as if nothing at all had happened. My dick felt a little sore where my clothes rubbed up against it and Juno was tugging me by our joined wrists as if he couldn’t run quickly enough away from what had transpired on the landing below. I kept pace with him for a few flights of stairs, worry gnawing at me like a herd of particularly rapacious moon-termites. Surely, I had overstepped. Trusted too much, perhaps, in the honesty forced by Dr. Verdrücken’s creation. I had tried to ensure that Juno and I wanted the same experience, that he was alright, but clearly I had miscalculated somewhere because the thief dragging me up the stairs with his shoulders hunched up to his ears was  _ not _ alright.

“Juno,” I said, when I couldn’t take it anymore, “You’re upset.”

He shrugged one shoulder, “Yeah,” he confirmed, “It’s not your problem, though.”

I might have been relieved to hear that in a different context, but not after what had only just transpired between us. Just because he  _ believed  _ that his feelings were not my problem did not necessarily make it fact, “Juno, if I—” I stammered out, as we continued up the stairs, his boots thumping on each step, “I’m deeply sorry, it was… unwise for us to be intimate while under the influence of this device, if… if I did anything—”

Juno groaned, shook his head, “No.”

“No?”

“It’s not about that,” Juno insisted, “That was… nice.”

I couldn’t keep the flare of offended pride from my voice, “ _ Nice?" _

“ _ Amazing _ , Peter, okay?” Juno acquiesced, none too convincingly given the strain of his tone. He must have heard it too, “It’s  _ really _ not that, not, I—  _ shit _ , I’m screwing this all up!” he came to a sudden stop and I almost hurtled into him. Standing one step up from me as he was, we were just about eye to eye. His blue eyes were deeply troubled as they implored mine, “It is not  _ you, _ ” he insisted, and when his hand brushed my cheek I found myself without the power to resist leaning into his touch, “It is not anything you did. And you don’t need to doubt that that’s the truth because if I lied about it right now, I’d be choking on my own words. Though, hell, maybe that would be _better_ than you having to listen to—”

I kissed him to keep him from even finishing the detestable thought, “It would not be better.” one corner of Juno’s mouth tucked downward, but he did not argue the point, “Now, will you tell me why you’re upset?”

“I, it’s stupid,” he said, looking off to the side, “But something you said reminded me of my brother. That's it, okay?” He turned and began walking again, and I could do little but follow.

“That does not sound like something that I would categorize as ‘stupid’,” I told him, “Rather, that sounds like a normal factor of human grief. I must confess, by and large it has seemed as though you have been grappling with your loss remarkably well.”

Juno snorted, “Sure, if ignoring it counts as 'grappling well', then yeah. I’ve been nailing it.”

“I don’t know if that’s fair to yourself…”

“Maybe not,” Juno did not sound at all perturbed by the thought of being unfair to himself, “I’ve just always done it, pushed away the stuff that there’s no use crying over.” That was definitely a process that I was very familiar with, “I've been focusing on the case to keep from thinking about it, but sometimes… it doesn't work and it overwhelms me anyway.” he sighed, “Thing is, I spend so much time away from Hyperion, I can almost forget it even happened. I can believe it was a bad dream, or something, that Ben is still fine, just out of sight until… well... until I can't pretend.”

I frowned deeply and squeezed his hand, my heart aching with empathy, “I understand.”

Juno’s steps slowed, “You… you’re not going to lecture me about how that’s unhealthy?”

“I’m not a doctor, Juno,” I replied, “I suppose it isn’t the picture of health, but I also refrain from being a hypocrite when I can help it and I’m something of an expert where avoidance of unpleasant topics is concerned.”

“It’s different when the thing you’re ignoring is the blood on your hands…” he grumbled and I was surprised by the spike of irritation that went through me at the thief’s boldness, his self-centeredness, his presumption. He knew so little of me and even if that was by my own design, it rankled to hear him assume he knew anything of what I might be ignoring.

“He is a fool that presumes to know the weight of another man’s burden.” I said, before I even registered the old idiom in my head. 

“That saying,” Juno glanced at me sideways, cautious, “You heard it growing up on Brahma, I assume?”

“...Yes.” I confirmed, declining to point out that making assumptions was counter to the whole thing.

“What’s your point?” Juno asked.

“It isn't exactly obscure, Juno,” I said impatiently, “To spell it out for you plainly, I am advising you not to assume that you are the only one present who endeavors to ignore the blood he has got on his hands.”

“Oh. Oh, right. Got it.” Juno said, blinking as he wrapped his head around what I had said. I scowled to myself as we climbed another flight of stairs, ensconced in our own separate thoughts, until Juno once again broke the silence, “It’s just… well, it’s not the blood that’s on my hands that scares me most. It’s, it’s the blood  _ not _ on my hands.”

There was something hollow in his voice that I couldn’t help but take seriously, “Your… mother?” I prompted.

“Sarah,” Juno growled, “I-I didn’t  _ kill her _ , but…” he made a pained sound in his throat, “Fuck, I… okay, I wish I had! I just stood there and I  _ watched  _ and I… I  _ would have _ but she beat me to it, damn it!”

That fierceness I had talked about in the heat of passion was on full display, Juno’s fists (including the one linked with mine) curled painfully tight, his eyes flashing with loathing that burned inward and outward with the same intensity, “You…” I said delicately, knowing it was not what he wanted me to say. Why, it wasn’t even what  _ I _ wanted to say, but it was true, “You may find it to have been a blessing in disguise.”

“What makes you so sure I—” he snarled.

“ _ Hating  _ a parent is a different burden entirely,” I spat, surprised by the sharpness that had risen to my own tongue, “Than living with having  _ killed _ a parent. Mark me on that, Juno.”

Juno had slowed to look at my face, but I did not meet his eyes, keeping my gaze trained ahead. I did  _ not _ want to tell him this story, and yet it seemed my own honesty had shoved me into a corner. After several moments of walking without speaking, Juno apparently could take it no longer, “...and that’s something you know about? Killing a parent?”

“Yes,” I said quietly, bitterly, “Yes, it is.” 

“Oh.” Juno said. He fell silent once again but I knew the thief too well by this point to expect that it might last, that he might leave the old wound I had just bared alone when his irrepressible curiosity might instead prod it, “You killed your parent.” 

Not a question. I didn’t  _ have _ to answer, and yet —  _ and yet — _ the confession was swelling up in me like a sandstorm gathering in the Martian wastes, “The only parent I ever knew,” I said, my voice quiet and strained and ignoring my efforts to silence it altogether, “A… my foster father, one might call him. He found me living on the streets, saw my potential, I suppose.”

“He saved your life.” Juno observed. I cringed, though it did not sound like a condemnation. Juno’s thumb brushed across my knuckles, “Is that why you stayed with him?”

I shook my head, “No. Well, I don’t know. That was a part of it, no doubt. At first it was plain opportunism. A child on Brahma in those days…” Juno’s grip tightened on my hand and it had no right to be as comforting as it was, making it a little easier to watch my tightly-guarded secrets tumble haplessly from my own tongue, “I stayed with him to survive, but that was not all of it. We… we were a family. We watched each other’s backs, cared for one another, taught each other… he recognized my intelligence and my gifts, I respected his. We… we were a team. A formidable duo.”

“I get that…” Juno said wistfully, and my mind dragged up the image of a dead man in a leotard, sporting a death mask of Juno’s face. I squeezed his hand, “What changed?” he prompted me.

“I… he filled my head with ideas, with goals. I… thought we were fighting for a common cause, a common  _ goal _ , but he had lied to me.” I felt Juno’s glance but had not the courage to meet it, “Lies were our currency as thieves, Mag and I," how long had it been since I'd spoken that name aloud? "But we only lied to our marks, to cops, to merchants. Or so I thought. But he… my whole life, the whole world he had built for me to inhabit… devastating lies, about my real father, about the cost of our mission, I…” I sucked in a deep breath through my nose, shut my eyes against the orange light of the stairwell, which all of a sudden seemed to bear too sticky a resemblance to that red room back on New Kinshasa, “The truth came out at the crucial moment in a… heist. An… insurgence, rather. I had to choose and… the senseless end to all those lives, or… I saw no other course but to kill him. He filled my head with grandeur, with a fairy tale about justice and saving the world but I couldn’t save the world. Or even my city,” I scowled at myself, at the memory of how my hands had not even had the decency to shake as I falsified my papers in the shack that was the first and only home I’d ever known, “I could save only myself.”

Juno was quiet for a few seconds, his thumb still skating across my knuckles as if we were strolling down a boulevard in search of lunch. He asked in a mild tone, “You ran away?”

“Yes. I ran away. I tried to scare them, the people Mag and I had sought to stop. I did it half to stall for time, but I… though I couldn’t stomach his methods, I did share his enemy. I knew I might not make it off-planet and I was steeped in all that false grandeur all those years, I wanted my parting words to be worth a damn. I wanted to make them question their flagrant disregard for life, their corruption, their hubris. They weren’t as unstoppable as they believed themselves to be. I  _ could _ have stopped them, but I— I wouldn’t kill all those people. When it came down to it, all Mag’s grooming still couldn’t make a hero of me, but it had taught me to talk like one, at the very least.”

“You…” Juno whispered, and there was something I didn’t recognize in his voice. I could keep my gaze off of him no longer. I expected shock, confusion, even repulsion on his face. But not in a million years would I have anticipated the look of awe. And something else; _recognition;_ “You’re  _ him _ ,” he breathed out in wonderment, “The Angel of Brahma,” my heart skipped as it dawned on me what my loose lips had wrought, and then Juno said, voice low and amazed, “ _ Peter Nureyev _ .”

My legs gave out and I staggered, as winded as though the name had been a kick to my solar plexus. I leaned heavily against the nearest wall, my head tipped back against it as I tried to gulp in oxygen. It felt less like the roof was caving in on me as that  _ I _ was the roof and walls, and all of my carefully-laid bricks was crumbling. I realized that Juno was saying my name — the first name only, a small mercy — and he sounded worried. His free hand found my shoulder and I shook it off instantly, “Apologies,” I gasped, still struggling to breathe properly, “I-I’m sorry, Juno, it…” a whistling inhale, “Only… it’s been…” a trembling exhale, “I haven’t heard that name in at least seven years.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” he coached my breathing a little shakily, and I mostly ignored him as I managed to pick up the tattered pieces of my composure, “Are you alright?”

“Let’s get out of here.” I said, voice strained and rough as I pushed off from the wall and started up the stairs again, taking them two at a time and forcing Juno’s shorter legs to match my pace. If Juno made a verbal reply, I did not hear it, too absorbed was I in my own head. Seven years… seven years of living under a false name in this forsaken city on this forsaken red planet, giving a wide berth to any acquaintance that had the potential to become more, keeping the red light and lessons of thieving and plaintive guitar melodies and intelligent yellow eyes full of deception all folded away in a heavily-locked compartment. There were occasional slip-ups — I have always been far from perfect — but I worked hard to keep my past in the past where it belonged.

All of that effort, now blown away on the wind.

Juno Steel was a thief. He had deceived me before, he had injured my feelings before. I would have liked with every fiber of my being to trust him, but how could I? He  _ knew _ who I was. I’d given him my name. I could kill him, but—

But, I couldn’t. I couldn’t kill him. I detested myself for so much as thinking it. Let him out me, blackmail me, ruin me, turn me in. Better I pay for my crimes than him. 

I should have been able to avoid the topic, I should have shoved my fist in my mouth if it was the only way to stop the confession. Only… I hadn’t really minded, deep down. I should have hated it, but, I very nearly  _ liked _ the idea of Juno knowing. Apart from the fear I had trained myself to feel at the very prospect of being discovered. If someone  _ had _ to discover me, was there anyone I would rather entrust my life to than Juno Steel? Were there any hands I would rather have hold my stolen truth than his?

“It’s… kinda funny,” Juno said, which was truly not my choice of word to describe this situation, “You, an angel…” he laughed quietly at some private joke that I could surmise easily enough; I was hardly an angel. He blew out a wowed sigh, “But Peter…  _ Nureyev _ …” my heart stuttered in my chest, terrified and… peculiarly  _ elated _ to hear Juno’s lips wrap around my true name a second time, “Shit,” he said, “I… want to ask you to, to get off this doomed fucking rock with me, or, or,” Another sigh, this one frustrated, “But it doesn’t seem right to give you ultimatums while we’ve got these things on. When—”

I was about a second away from saying yes, from agreeing to any hare-brained scheme the thief could invite me into, without thinking it over at all. I couldn’t, I simply could not. I’d given enough of myself to Juno Steel in the last moments and there was very little left and I felt exposed, itching to be able to wrap the distance and protection of an alias around me again. My voice came out cold with the strain of resisting throwing myself headlong into a life-long adventure by Juno’s side, “It seemed like you were working out a way to get them off before, isn’t that right?” I asked.

“...Oh, yeah. R-right,” Juno said, obviously flustered by that response. He lifted our linked wristed to indicate the spot where the cord connected to the cuff, “Um, if we could just sever it here, I think we’d be good. But you vetoed the blaster and I haven’t got a knife or—”

“Would a plasma cutter do?” I asked, biting back the list of the other three knives I had concealed on my person.

Well,  _ yeah _ ,” Juno elbowed me in the ribs, “Why were you keeping that to yourself? We could have been out of them ages ago!”

I resisted pointing out that my reluctance to be free of the handcuffs was the precise reason I had made no mention of the blades before now. But my need to have them off, to have my lies back at my disposal, quite suddenly had come to outweigh my desire to keep Juno literally tethered to my side. I fished the plasma cutter from my pocket and hovered over the spot on the cuffs, verified, “Here?” before applying pressure at his nod and watching the cord part as easily as a stick of cloned butter.

We both stared, breath held for a few seconds, as if waiting for the cuffs to explode. They did nothing more than hang limply from our arms like unfashionable bangles. Juno slowly let his hand fall to his side, and a second later I did the same. I avoided Juno’s eyes, but I could hear his grimace when he asked quietly, “So, um… do you think it… worked?”

I cleared my throat, “My real name is Peter Ransom.” I said. The only ill effect was a queasy churning in my stomach.

“Wha—?” 

“I grew up here on Mars,” I went on flatly, “And I have never been to the Outer Rim.” I sighed and suffused my voice with relief that I did not truly feel, “It worked.”

“Yeah, guess it did,” Juno said distantly, putting his hands in his pockets, “Good.”

“Are you alright?” I asked.

Juno started walking up the stairs again, saying in an unconvincing tone, “Yup. Never been better.”

We continued on in a silence that felt to me increasingly awkward. It only took another flight or two before we reached a landing that finally had a door. Juno opened it and peeked through before looking back at me over his shoulder, offering a strained smile. The floor appeared much like level Sub-3, where Verdrücken’s lab had been located. Following the map of that layout in my head, we quickly found the elevator. I called it and we waited in silence, Juno fidgeting restlessly beside me. It was cold comfort to know that he shared some measure of my own mortification at the day’s events, and a somewhat more substantial comfort that I had regained my ability to  _ seem _ unruffled despite the ill way my insides were sloshing with everything I had said and done under the influence of Verdrücken’s invention.

The elevator doors opened onto the ground floor and just as Juno was about to leave, I heard something and flung out an arm to stop him. He turned to me with a furious expression, mouth open and ready to tear into me, as if I did not share every ounce of his eagerness to be gone from this place. Then he heard it, too; I watched the recognition register on his face. 

“...can’t  _ do this! _ ” Verdrücken’s voice was demanding shrilly, “You  _ can’t! _ I have to _find_ them!”

“We’ll take care of that.” A voice sternly dismissed.

“You don’t  _ understand! _ ” Verdrücken sobbed. Unable to resist looking, with an unspoken agreement to avoid being seen, Juno and I both peeked around the edge of the elevator door. Three HCPD officers had Marlena Verdrücken in custody, herding her through the lobby towards the door, a pair of shiny Safe Cells handcuffs glinting around her wrists with bright silver irony, “They— they’re monsters,  _ thieves! _ They destroyed all my research, my data! They s-stole my prototype!”

Juno snorted quietly as Verdrücken and her unheeded pleas were escorted through the front door by police officers that, in all likelihood, were responsible for as much, if not more, suffering than she was. What passed for justice in Hyperion City always left a foul taste in one’s mouth. I cleared my throat, but the taste remained, “Come along, Juno,” I said, “I don’t think I can bear to look at this place a second more.”

“Yeah,” Juno said, “Let’s go h— let’s… go.”

We walked out the door and I failed to ignore that Juno had nearly called my apartment his home. I failed to ignore that he had corrected himself. We made our way there in a nearly unbroken silence.


	12. Juno Steel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TWs for this chapter:
> 
> canon-typical self-loathing from Juno

The door opened and I took exactly one step before a small furry projectile hit me in the gut. I fumbled the dog’s happily squealing, squirming form in my arms and huffed, “Geez, Smallfry, who knew you could jump like that?” the dog gave a whine of unadulterated glee and I couldn’t help but smile. After the thick-enough-to-cut tension of _Nureyev’s_ company on the way back here, the silence crowded with the things we hadn’t said and even more things we couldn’t _unsay_ , Smallfry’s simple joy was a relief. “I’m happy to see you, too.” I told her honestly.

 _Peter goddamn Nureyev_ shut and locked the door, and skirted around me and Smallfry’s happy reunion. His arm brushed mine and I gave Smallfry a squeeze to keep myself from reaching out to grab his hand, or something similarly stupid. I watched peripherally as he shed the lab coat, folded it neatly, and placed it on the kitchen counter. He opened the cabinet and his hand hesitated, considering taking out two glasses before opting to take only one. I focused on Smallfry, the loving shine in those four dark eyes of hers that had given me such a pathetic, mournful look when we’d left in the morning. _Man_ , I thought, as I registered the sound of Peter filling the glass with water and drinking it, _that feels a lot longer ago than this morning._

Smallfry licked my chin and I laughed, “Silly girl,” I muttered to her, scratching my fingers through her fur, “I told you I’d come back, didn’t I? Didn’t I?” I heard the empty glass being placed carefully on the counter, and I could feel _Nureyev’s_ eyes on me. I wanted to lift my head and look at him, but I was reluctant to. I _wanted_ to ask him what he was thinking, but now that there was no bizarro honesty tech in the mix, there was no reason to think I’d get a straight answer.

The thought hurt. Like, _really_ hurt. After seeing the mask of _Ransom_ stripped away, the face of _Nureyev_ laid bare, after hearing words that were true and untailored, there was no way I could stand going back to playing our assigned roles. We had never really _been_ the urbane detective and the haphazard thief we claimed to be… hell, by the sounds of it, Peter was a more qualified thief than I’d ever been. 

To think that the famous Angel of Brahma had been a thief. And a child. 

My head swam, and suddenly it was too much to be in the same room as him. I set Smallfry down and told her, “Here, h-hang out with… Peter for a while. Be good.” I didn't look back at the two of them as I hurried down the hall to the washroom and closed the door, leaning against it and heaving a grateful sigh for the solitude. I had too much to sort through in my head, I couldn’t do it with _Peter Nureyev’s_ clear, bright eyes watching every microexpression that moved across my face.

I didn’t much care for the view myself, as I caught sight of my reflection. My clothes were rumpled and dirty in places with the dust from the stairwell floor. I swallowed hard against the memory of those heated touches, the movement of my Adam’s apple in the mirror drawing my eye to a dark hickey on my throat. My mouth watered at the thought of it all, the sharp teeth pulling that bruise up on my skin, the silken touch of his hand, the ambrosia of him flowing decadently onto my tongue.

I shivered and tried to push the memory away, turning the shower on to allow the water to heat. I toed off my shoes, shoved the lab coat off to crumple underfoot, and pulled my shirt over my head, grimacing at the crusting stain on my abdomen. I peeled off my pants and soiled underwear, my dick taunting me with its hardness at the memory of how quick and dirty it had all been, pressing each other to the floor and shoving clothes aside. It had been _hot_ and almost _too_ sweet, my fantasies come to life in brilliant color, but it soured on my tongue now as I stepped under the stream of hot water.

It had seemed so good at the time, to get the confirmation that Peter Ransom wanted me just like I wanted him. Only he _wasn’t_ Peter Ransom, and I _hadn’t_ gotten confirmation of anything, not really. Sure, with Marlena Verdrücken’s cuffs on, he hadn’t been able to keep his hands off me, but that didn’t really prove anything. If my time in those damn handcuffs had taught me one thing, it was that Peter made me feel… a lot. More than lust, more than chemical compatibility, a hell of a lot more than an intellectual partnership or whatever. 

But even with all that honesty, and all those confessions… what the hell did he feel? What the hell did he _want_ _?_ I’d already known he was far better than anything I deserved, and that was _before_ I found out he was a freedom-fighter who had sown a deep channel of faith and rebellion in his people with just one measly little impromptu speech. I’d made a lot of stupid speeches in my life, but none of them had ever made a shred of difference to anyone, far as I could tell. Even his detective work was meant to help people, one way or another, whether it always played out that way or not. What had I ever done worth a damn? Run away from the responsibility of my family, stolen this and that for whoever paid the best, sent some of that money home but burned most of it chasing drugs and sex and anything that could make me forget how useless I really was at the end of the day. Why should Peter _Nureyev_ feel anything more than lust for me? Why should he even feel that, when he was all lean gorgeous lines and bright eyes and sly seductive mouth? He could have anyone in the galaxy, but he had just happened to get handcuffed to a clumsy thief who’d lost track of his potential somewhere between the Old Town sewers and the dodgiest spaceports Solar and Outer had to offer.

Now, I had a lot of practice telling myself what an irredeemable piece of shit I was, but as I washed my hair with _Nureyev’s_ fragrant shampoo, I couldn’t help but find fault with my own spiral. If it was a matter of willful manipulation, okay, but _everything_ the handcuffs had made Nureyev say was honest. And he had said a lot more than what run-of-the-mill lust called for. A litany unspooled in my mind, words I could barely believe I'd heard.

 _I couldn’t bear a galaxy without you in it._ That didn’t really sound like a man whose interest in me began and ended with my cock. Did it?

And when Verdrücken had described him as being ‘under my spell’, _I tried to resist him._ And when she’d called him ‘lovelorn’, the way he had choked on his denial… My heart lurched hopefully in my chest. 

_It would be an honor to die at your side, Juno._ What an idiot…

 _It’s nice to know you aren’t going to disappear on me again._ My eyes stung as I rinsed the suds from my hair and I pretended it was just soap in my eyes. How had my absence possibly mattered to a man like him, like Peter Nureyev? And yet, he’d tried to tell me, and he had told me the truth. _When it came right down to it, Juno, I mostly just missed you._

 _You were the first thing I had encountered in so very long that held any excitement or interest for me and then you were just gone._ And, well… it had been the same for me, hadn’t it? I’d given the HCPD the slip easy enough, I’d rendezvoused with Verdrücken — _Mara Vial_ , at the time — and given her the damn collar I’d taken from Peter’s pocket, and I’d gotten on the next ship off Mars. But… I had not been able to shake him. Everything out there seemed so dull compared to the light in his eyes, everything so boring compared to his wit and his sharp smile. I’d tried everything to get the smell of his cologne out of my nose, to get the sweet bite of that brandy off of my tongue, but nothing did the trick. I’d been the one who left him behind, but without meaning to, I’d brought him along with me.

Some thief I was, when he’d done all the stealing. 

_You could never disappoint me, Juno._

I turned off the water and stood for a moment in the steam, the drip of the showerhead and my breathing echoing off the tile. Maybe not just lust, then. But even if that was true, how could I _trust_ it?

I got out of the shower and grabbed a towel from the rack, drying off distractedly. And then I was confronted with a different problem. In my rush to get away from Nureyev’s watchful gaze, I’d neglected to gather a change of clothes for myself before coming in here. I considered for a moment putting my discarded clothes back on again, but given the stains of cum and dust and polymer residue, I couldn’t quite bring myself to. The towel was too small to wrap myself with adequately and I cast around for an alternative. There were hooks on the inside of the door, hanging with towels and discarded jewelry and scarves and, to my relief, an impressive selection of robes.

I looked through them, the simvelvet and satin and silk slipping through my fingers with entrancing softness. I couldn’t help but imagine how Peter must look in them, the light catching the folds in the dark green velvet in beautiful contrast to the fair warm tone of his skin, the way the pale gold satin would drape off his slender form. I opted for the one that was the roomiest and least ostentatious. It was a mauve satin with lacey edges and drapey sleeves that I never would have picked out in a store — if I’d even know how to _find_ the kind of store that would sell it — but once I had it on, I couldn’t deny the fabric felt smooth and nice against my clean skin. 

When I looked in the mirror to make sure everything vital was covered up as I tied the waist, I also couldn’t deny that it looked good on me. Soft and pretty in a way that reminded me comfortingly of staying up late with Benten and painting our nails. I lifted my arm and watched the lacey sleeve trail gracefully below it, smiled inwardly at the thought of how Ben would say _“it’s not stealing if you’re meant to have it”._

It was an overly simplistic sentiment, of course, and one he and I had bickered about plenty of times. There were times, though, when it held water. Times when stealing was justified, times when it was a victimless crime, times when it only stood to improve matters. I didn’t really care one way or the other about Nureyev’s robe. Good as it looked on me, it definitely would have looked even better on him. But another kiss, another day, his heart… there were things I was interested in stealing from him, only I just didn’t know. Did they fall into the ‘ _meant to have_ ’ category? I wished more than I'd ever wished for anything suddenly that I could call Ben and ask his advice, and grief crested like a wave in my chest. No one had ever thought so, but he’d always been the smart one, and he’d always had an acute sense of what I needed to hear.

 _“Fuck,”_ I said softly, swiping tears from my eyes and looking at my reflection, ignoring the scar and the haircut and pretending with all my might that it was my brother looking back at me, “I miss you, Benten.”

I could imagine his rapt expression as I explained it all to him. The Stingkitty collar, the handcuffs and parting kiss, the Angel of Brahma I’d heard about in the shadow of New Kinshasa, the tension and teamwork of figuring out what Verdrücken was up to, the handcuffs that had pulled the truth out of us, the lust bubbling irrepressibly to the surface… The way he’d tease me for always getting myself into situations more convoluted than a melodrama stream, the way he’d observe that the convoluted-ness and the risk and the bullshit was part of the fun for me, that I could never just _date_ like a respectable lady. He’d say it all knowingly, lovingly, and… well, correctly. I didn’t know what he’d make of the Angel of Brahma stuff… hell, I didn’t know what _I_ made of it. I tried to wrap my head around it again, around Peter as a scared and misguided teenager, noble and gifted and clever as he was deluded, stuck between a rock and a hard place, seeing no other way…

I was too damn tired for this. I just needed to sleep the day off, and maybe everything would make even the littlest bit more sense in the morning. I opened the washroom door cautiously, but the lights were out in the hall and the kitchen. I let out a relieved sigh; Peter had gone to bed and I could put off facing him till the next day. 

I padded to the living room and laid down on the couch, where Smallfry hopped up and curled under my arm. I stroked her fur and willed my body to _just fucking sleep_. My eyes adjusted to the dark, the neon that spilled in the window enough to see more clearly by with each passing minute. My eyes found the silhouette of some unidentifiable object on the coffee table and I stared at it for a moment before curiosity got the better of me as usual, and I reached over for it. It crinkled slightly at my touch and as I brought it closer to my face, I realized what it was. The dahlia flower that Peter — or had it been Rex Cobalt? — had given me after we searched Verdrücken’s apartment. I considered its withered petals for a second before deeming it too depressing and tossing it back down, grabbing my comms instead.

Which was a pretty shit move in terms of finding a less depressing distraction. The only new thing on my comms was a message I hadn’t listened to, left at some point while Peter and I had been trying to escape the catacombs of the damn lab. I read the transcription and my stomach churned up grief, reluctance, indecision, and about a billion other anxieties.

Greener Pastures Mortuary. Time to go pick up ‘my loved ones’. Pretty way to describe a couple little containers of ash and bone dust… What the hell was I going to do with them? My eyes pricked again as the feelings in my chest warred like a bunch of sewer rabbits fighting over the last beer — what was I going to _do?_

“Juno?” the soft baritone cut through the growing din in my head. I sat up, half-expecting Peter to be right there, like he had been after my nightmare, but he was still in the bedroom by the sound of it, “Will you… come here a moment?”

I guess I could have pretended to be asleep, but the thought didn’t even occur to me until I was halfway down the hall, Smallfry doing her best to trip me by bouncing excitedly around my ankles. I didn’t hesitate until I stood outside the door, which stood slightly ajar, “What’s up, R— uh, Pe— N… Peter?” I shut my eyes, grimacing at my own unfailing awkwardness, “What is it?”

“You need not loiter in the hall like a housekeeping bot,” Peter chastised lightly and I pushed the door open, though I only took a couple of steps into the room before coming to a stop again. Peter was in his bed, propped up on his elbows. A candle in a brown jar flickered beside the bed, filling the room with a soothing herbal aroma. So maybe I wasn’t the only one having a hard time quieting his thoughts tonight, “There he is.” Peter greeted, his tone pleasant but forced.

“Uh, hi.” I said, twisting the end of one of the robe’s ties between my fingers and focusing on the way the flame flickered through the tinted glass.

“You borrowed my robe?” Peter asked.

“Sorry,” I said, even though turning my attention to his face gave me no hint that he was bothered by it. Still, it suddenly felt presumptuous, “I-I forgot to, uh, when I showered. I was gonna take it off,” Peter’s eyebrows raised and I cursed my ability to always somehow find a way to put my foot in my mouth, “I mean, I was going to change into my own, stuff. I just haven’t. Yet.”

“Apology accepted,” Peter said, and I could hear the smile more than I could see it, “But I assure you, I don’t mind loaning it to you. I rather think I should be thanking you for borrowing it.”

“Thanking me?” I asked, taking another few steps in to the room. It was frustrating being unable to read his expression, especially after the bare honesty of the day.

“Indeed,” he said, his voice going soft. I was near enough now to see the way his eyes were taking me in, as if he meant to memorize me, “You’re quite the vision in it, it’s a sight I won’t soon forget.”

“Oh.” I said, swallowing the lump of nerves in my throat. I fiddled with the tie and felt more self-conscious by the second until finally I couldn’t take it anymore and I asked, way more sharply than necessary, “Did you need something? Or did you just want me to come in here so you could gawk at me?”

He sat up in bed, the change in position allowing more candlelight to land on his face. His expression was tight, uncertain, and he was using altogether too many words “I assure you, I had no intention of _'gawking'_ ,” he said with a shake of his head, “I apologize most sincerely, however, if I’ve caused you any—”

“I’m _fine_ ,” I lied, “What did you want?”

“Well, I… have a suspicion that I know what your answer shall be, but I may as well ask you the question I had planned to pose,” I crossed my arms and waited, “It is… entirely up to you, of course, Juno, but given the trying day we’ve had, I though it might do us both considerable good to sleep in a real bed tonight.” I frowned, and then his meaning dawned on me. I opened my mouth to question his reasoning, but he talked over me, “You have my word, I have no designs to trick, seduce, or coerce you. Truly. I… if you’d be more comfortable on the couch, I understand perfectly and we’ll speak no more of it.”

I blinked at him, torn between my desire to leap into the bed and curl my body around him and my suspicion that, regardless of what he said, there was more to his request than a fear that I might not get a good night’s sleep on his couch. And then his eyes broke away from mine, cast down on his lap, where he stopped wringing his hands. Of course there was more to it. _He_ didn’t want to be alone, and that made up my mind for me, “I…” I cleared my throat, “Okay, yeah. I’ll… join you. If you’re sure it won’t… be weird.”

Peter laughed, and it was another of those _snorts_ like the one I’d heard before, utterly honest, “I assure you, Juno, it won’t be even the fifth weirdest thing that’s happened today.”

I chuckled, “Okay, you’ve got a point…” I walked to the bed and he slid over to make room for me, pulling back the covers in invitation. I climbed in and there was nothing I could do to conceal the small sigh that slipped from me or the way I melted into the warmth of the spot he’d occupied a second before, the bedding silky and soft and smelling wonderfully of him. 

“More comfortable than the couch, I take it?” he asked, just above a whisper. There was no need to talk any louder than that, given that the width of the bed only allowed for a distance of a handful of careful inches between us.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding and nestling my face covertly into the pillow where the spice-sweet smell was the strongest, “‘S’nice.”

We lay in silence for a few minutes. Smallfry jumped onto the bed and curled up in the space between Peter’s feet and mine, “Goodnight, Smallfry.” I said.

I could hear the fond smile in Peter’s voice as he said, “Goodnight, Smallfry. And goodnight, Juno.” 

“Goodnight,” I said, _Nureyev_ stuck in my throat. I tried to cover up the uneven intonation of the word by adding, “Um, sleep well.”

I was near enough to _hear_ Peter’s smile widen, “Thank you, my dear thief. The same to you.”

Mercifully, I was exhausted enough to fall asleep promptly, cocooned in soft fabric and the sound of soft breathing and the galaxy’s sweetest perfume.


	13. Peter Nureyev

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last two chapters and the epilogue are going up today, folx! Let's get some closure for these trust issue queers!
> 
> TWs for this chapter:  
> Nureyev-typical identity issues  
> kinda praise kink or worship kink or maybe they just love each other, hard to say  
> explicit sexual content (yay!)  
> light dom/sub dynamic, with negotiation as to who's domming  
> anal fingering  
> anal sex with a strap-on happens (I've continued the use of kind of ambiguous or masculine-coded language to talk about Nureyev's body)

I woke slowly, the boundary between dream and reality as fluid and blurred as a watercolor rendering. I found myself suspended in and surrounded by softness and warmth. As my brain became more alert, I registered that my cheek was pressed to some solid surface, with its own warmth. By the gentle snores against the top of my head and the relaxed heartbeat drumming comfortingly beneath my ear, I identified the surface as someone’s chest. Arms encircled me, marvelously big, strong arms. My legs were tangled between my bedmate’s thighs —  _ mercy _ , such wondrous thighs, thick and shapely and strong. Without a plan or a thought to direct it to do so, my hand glided from the soft waist over curve of the satin-clad hip and along the thigh, fingertips delighting in the contrast in texture from the smoothness of the satin, over delicacy of the lacey border, to the warm skin with its coarse dusting of hair.

Against my crown, a small appreciative murmur at the touch. It was not a word, and it could hardly even be called  _ speech _ , but my ears and my very  _ soul _ would have known that voice anywhere. I was suddenly quite entirely awake, my mind working to retrace the steps that had brought me to this point, to waking up happily entwined with Juno Steel. I needed to know the steps so that I might never forget them, might replicate them again and again like a clever bit of choreography, and wake up this way every day for the remainder of my life. 

The events of the previous day and evening returned to me and I frowned against the warm satin of the robe —  _ my _ robe — which partially covered Juno’s chest. On second thought, I hoped that I perhaps might find some less contrived set of steps to get the irresistibly lovely thief into my bed; I didn’t suppose I could withstand every day going like the previous one had gone. Juno’s fingers curled sleepily against my lower back and it was like a welcome fire, warming the hearth of my heart and heating the hunger of my groin. I melted a little closer, utterly dissolving at the way Juno’s arms wrapped around me even in sleep. 

Smallfry chose just that moment to paw at my calf. Reluctantly I had to admit that she was correct. I needed to get out of this bed if I was going to think with any modicum of sense.

I extricated myself from Juno’s embrace regretfully, but before I left the bed, I allowed myself a moment to admire him. I had never seen anything so exquisite. In the hazy light of the Hyperion morning, my robe suited him even better than I had realized in the dim of the room at night, the rosy shade of mauve breathtaking against the dark brown of his skin. It was a bit askew, slipping down one shoulder to show off a delicious stretch of skin, from deltoid to neck, a collarbone my tongue longed to trace. The satin had bunched up between his body and the mattress, revealing the crease where thigh met hip. The curly hair just peeked into view, as if to tempt me to pull away the other side of the robe and reveal the cock which had responded so beautifully to my touch, fit so perfectly in my hand, and which I knew would fit even more perfectly in a few other places… 

Smallfry pawed at my leg again and whined. “Good dog.” I told her as I slipped out of the bed. Every inch I put between Juno and myself ached a little, but as much I would have loved to wake him up with my mouth around his cock — and I would have loved that  _ so much  _ — I knew it was an unwise course of action. I had spent so much of my life avoiding and compartmentalizing and hiding, but I… did not want to do that with Juno. It was a bit astonishing to discover that desire, that capacity within myself, but if I could do this right, if I could make it  _ real _ , then I was going to. And to do that, we had to talk.

I was half sick with dread at the very prospect as I padded to the kitchen with Smallfry at my heels. As I got her breakfast sorted, I pondered about my latent desire for domesticity that apparently had chosen this morning to make itself known. It had been so  _ nice _ , not waking up alone. Not merely  _ not alone _ , but with  _ Juno _ . Juno, snoring in my hair and wearing my clothes and sleeping safely in my arms. How lovely it would be to wake up that way every day, to share clothes all the time. To share a bed, and a space, and even  _ a dog _ . I looked down at Smallfry with a measure of surprise at my own fondness for her, as she scarfed down her breakfast with an enthusiasm that pushed the dish across my kitchen floor.

I brushed my teeth and used the toilet and showered. I made coffee. I poured two cups. I put the precise amount of sugar into Juno’s mug that I had watched him measure out. I took a deep breath and admitted to myself that I could put it off no longer and I returned to my room.

The door creaked as I pushed past it and Juno startled slightly. Like myself, a light sleeper. An indispensable quality in a thief. He blinked blearily at me and frowned.  _ Oh no _ . He rubbed a hand through his curls, mussing them more severely, and grumbled, “Why’re you all th’way over there?”

It surprised a laugh out of me. Not frowning to see me returning, then, frowning to see that I had left at all. How wonderful, and how very  _ strange _ , “Forgive me, Juno, but your dog required feeding and I required caffeine.”

Juno snorted and flopped back down on the bed, scooting over so I would have room to climb back in easily, “Her name’s Smallfry,” he grumbled into the pillow, “‘N’ she’s yer dog, too.”

“Oh.” I said, completely at a loss for anything else to say. Was she my dog, too? I set our cups on the table and climbed back into the bed, sitting up against the headboard. Juno did not seem too concerned about receiving a more insightful response from me than ‘oh’, as a few seconds later he resumed snoring. I smiled. Let the lady get his rest, he’d more than earned it. I sipped my coffee and looked at my comms, barely registering the text and images that I scrolled by, my attention drawn back to Juno again and again as to a magnet.

He did not seem to sink back into a fully deep slumber, fidgeting often and snoring inconsistently. As I set my empty mug aside, he stretched and groaned and I… shamelessly watched the way the satin shifted against the straining planes of his gorgeous body, the way his face contorted with the pleasurable discomfort of it. I looked back at my comms before he could catch me staring, “G’morning, Nureyev.”

Just like that, my heart was pounding furiously against my ribs. My  _ name _ , my most desperately-guarded secret, and he just slurred it out simple and easy as anything. He said it as if it were any mundane statement one might make upon waking;  _ what time is it _ or  _ is there coffee _ or  _ how’d you sleep _ . How wonderful; how troubling. I struggled to suck in a breath.

“Whoa,” I felt the mattress shift as Juno propped himself up, and his hand found mine, “You okay?”

“Yes,” I forced out, “I— it will take some getting used to, that’s all,” I finally managed to take a proper breath, and opened my eyes, unsure when I had shut them so tightly, “Hearing that name again.”

“I can call you something else,” Juno supplied instantly and my gaze slid to his face, wide blue eyes full of concern, hair falling across a creased brow, lips curved in a reassuring and nervous smile, “We can stick with Ransom, or, or just Peter, or, hell, something else if that’d be better.”

“It’s my name, Juno,” I said wearily, setting my comms down and turning to face him, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“It’s not  _ ridiculous _ ,” Juno shook his head, and my heart faltered for an altogether different reason, to see that moral outrage throwing sparks in his eyes, in the set of his shoulders, “It’s a _name_ somebody else gave you, which you gave to me... under… under  _ duress _ or whatever. If you don’t want me to say it, I won’t. Ever again.”

I smiled at him indulgently. He was wonderful and it was harder to pretend I didn’t think so all the time, so… well, perhaps it was no use pretending at all, “No, Juno,” I said sincerely, “I… to tell you the truth, I like hearing it. I… like the way you make it sound,” Juno’s cheeks glowed beautifully, “But it may catch me off guard from time to time. I…” I sighed, “I have spent a long time hiding from that name.”

Juno hummed thoughtfully, a thumb stroking the back of my hand, as his eyes studied my face, “Peter Nureyev,” he said, slowly and softly, his tongue caressing reverently over each syllable. I could do nothing to stop the small smile that spread across my lips. He shook his head a little, “It’s weird. When I was on Brahma, I never thought I’d  _ meet _ Peter Nureyev, thought he was a myth maybe, or at any rate, probably rotting in an unmarked grave somewhere. But I already knew him.”

“I’m no myth,” I confirmed, “And I promise you, very much alive.”

Juno’s hand dropped mine to rest over my sternum, my heart beating just beneath his palm, “Good,” he said simply, resting his cheek against my thigh and yawning, “I… what was it? I couldn’t bear a galaxy without you in it.”

I wondered if he could feel the way my heart sped up beneath his hand, “My,” I observed, “You’re a sentimental little thing in the morning, aren’t you?”

He hummed, “You said it first.”

I realized why the words had a familiar ring to them and chuckled, a bit embarrassed to have them turned back on me, “Yes. Yes, I suppose I did.” Juno smiled against my thigh but made no further response. I thought about what he’d said. It was strange to imagine him on Brahma, troubling and wonderful all at once. Those feelings seemed to pervade my mind this morning, awe and perturbation in equal measure. I felt a powerful wave of homesickness for the first time in a long while, and that waved crashed painfully against the firm shore that was my pragmatism, “Do you still want to ask me to leave Mars with you?” I asked, keeping my voice as light as I could.

Juno hesitated for a second, “Do you still want to say no?”

There was little else I wanted more than to say yes. I shook my head, “It has very little to do with what I want, Juno.”

Juno rolled his eyes, tilting his head to look up at me, “Actually,” he countered, and I allowed him to tug me back down onto the bed, to lay down beside him properly, “It sorta has everything to do with what you want, Peter.”

I was glad when he pulled the blankets up over our shoulders, the warmth and the weight of them a welcome presence as we settled in for a difficult conversation, “I… I’m not sure it would be wise for me to say yes. It has been easy for me to be overlooked on Mars. I’m just another nobody on the Solar Planets, but the Outer Rim is something of a small pond, in which I fear I may be… a dangerously large fish.”

“If you do say so yourself.” Juno teased.

“I’m serious, Juno,” I insisted, “You’ve spent time in the Outer Rim, so I needn’t spell it out for you. The power systems there are tenuous, and anyone who poses a threat to that might as well pin a target to their back.” Juno frowned, but he nodded once to show he knew what I meant, “I…” the words stuck in my throat but I pushed them out, “I couldn’t let you attach yourself to that kind of risk.”

“So, we’ll stick to the Solar Planets, then.” he agreed easily. I blinked and for the first time realized how completely serious he may be about this.

“That…” I had to talk him out of it. Even if my heart surged with hope at the prospect, I couldn’t let him make that kind of sacrifice for my sake, “A thief must be willing to go where the work takes him, Juno. And there’s so much work of that kind in the Outer Rim, I—”

“In that case, it’s a good thing,” Juno interrupted, “That I’ve had just about enough of thieving for one lifetime.”

That surprised me, “Oh? I didn’t know you were considering a change of profession.”

Juno shrugged, “I wasn’t until right now. But—”

“Juno, you can’t just give up your career because—”

“ _ Career _ ,” Juno scoffed, “To hell with my  _ career _ . I never wanted to be a thief, ya know, it was just the only thing I seemed to have the right skills for and it was an added bonus that it could get me as far from home as possible,” there was a bitter tinge of regret to his words, but it was gone as he went on, “But there’s bound to be something I can do that’s got a shorter commute.”

It took me a moment to realize what he meant, “A shorter… you can’t mean you intend to stay on  _ Mars _ !”

“Hey,” Juno said, hearing the disgust that crept into my voice at the word, “Careful how you talk about my home planet. You don’t hear me trashing Brahma, do you?”

My eyes fell shut and I pressed my cheek into the pillow, eager for some comfort, “I… don’t suppose I’d blame you if you did.” I told him.

“Shit,” he muttered, and then his warm hand was rubbing over my arm soothingly, “I… tell you the truth, I actually like Brahma.” I peeked one eye open, trying to tell if that could possibly be true or if Juno had just chosen this moment to become a convincing liar. Catching the sharp look, he admitted, “I mean, don’t get me wrong, that whole setup with the lasers is seriously fucked, but… yeah, I like it. It’s… beautiful and the people there, they have a lot of…” he seemed to reach for the word he needed, “Spirit,” he landed on, his hand gliding up the side of my neck, “Resilience,” he added, his gaze full of adoration as he cupped my cheek, “Warmth.”

I smiled gratefully, the thought of him there wrapping around my heart, “It’s nice, in some regards, imagining you there.” I admitted and one of his eyebrows quirked up, “The only place I ever called home and the only person I’ve ever so deeply,” I caught myself, wetting my lips and finishing a bit lamely, “Felt for.”

Juno’s other hand found my left wrist and tugged the wristlet from Verdrücken’s cuffs which still circled it uselessly, “You sure this thing isn’t still working its truth magic on you?” he asked, his teasing not quite landing in the wake of my near-confession.

I shrugged and leaned my cheek against his palm, “Perhaps the experience taught me some valuable lessons.”

“Lab coats are a good look for you?” Juno asked, more humor flying up like shields against my honesty, “It’s a bad idea to cheat on super genius scientists? Spooky staircases are weirdly perfect both for confessing acts of teenage mutiny and sitting on—?”

“I’m tired of doing this alone, Juno.” I cut him off.

Juno cocked his head to the side like Smallfry at the sound of a beef brick can being opened, before offering cautiously, “...Investigating?” 

“Well, yes. But not only that,” I said, shaking my head, which prompted his hand to move, fingers twining into my slightly-damp hair, “But, well. All of it, I suppose. Living alone, existing like…” I sighed, “All the lying. I’m…” the truth slid out of me in a whisper, “Just tired.” 

“Yeah,” Juno whispered, utterly sincere now, and I could feel his breath, “I know the feeling, Nureyev,” the name startled a gasp out of me, sent a tingle down the length of my spine, “Shit, sorry! I—”

“Don’t,” my hands cupped Juno’s face and I shook my head, desperate to keep him from taking it back, “I told you that you could use my name. I won’t have you apologizing for it… please, I. I want you to, Juno.”

“Peter Nureyev.” Juno said again, softly, experimentally and my eyes prickled and my lips surprised me by smiling. He made it sound new, he made it sound  _ real _ . The sight of my smile emboldened him, his voice stronger as he said again, emphatically, “Peter Nureyev.”

Something resembling a sob bubbled out of me, “T-to tell you the absolute truth, Juno, I hardly know who Peter Nureyev is anymore.” It was the first time I’d said my own name in years and it sat strangely on my tongue.

Juno said nothing for a moment, but his fingers carding through my hair were comforting and tender, “Maybe,” he said softly, “Maybe I could tell you about him?” I peered up at the look on his face, sly and sweet and a little cautious. I could find nothing in that face to distrust _. _ I smiled tremulously and nodded, “He’s beautiful,” Juno said at once, thumb stroking over my eyebrow, the tension in my forehead melting under his touch, “I mean, he’s the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen. Even when I think I should be getting used to it, sometimes he’ll smile at me or, or put on a different shirt and I have to pick my damn jaw up off the floor.” I smiled at him, warmed not only by the praise but by the oh-so-typically Juno note of annoyance in his voice, as if my looks somehow were a personal offense, “Yeah,” he said, mirroring my smile, “I mean,  _ look _ at that smile? Beautiful.”

I wanted to kiss him, but before I could, he went on, “And he’s clever. Not just clever, Peter Nureyev is  _ brilliant _ ,” I shivered slightly at the name, but he just went on, “There’s no one I’d rather have solving a problem with me, he could puzzle his way out of just about the tightest spot in the galaxy,” I opened my mouth to disagree but he wasn’t done, “Or if not, he’d just talk his way out, because Peter Nureyev is one charming son-of-a-bitch. That charm got the better of me when we first met and has made my head spin about a hundred times since.” I winked at him and he flushed, “And  _ smug _ . Peter Nureyev is smug as—”

“Now, that doesn’t sound right—” I cut in.

“Hey, it’s my story—!”

“It’s not  _ a story, _ ” I pointed out, “It’s my  _ name _ —”

“Oh, right, I forgot about _stubborn_ ,” Juno rattled off, grinning deviously, “And a total know-it-all—”

“It’s hardly being a know-it-all when the topic is my—”

“I’m trying to tell you a _story_ ,” a firmness had risen in Juno’s tone that crushed my playful disagreements flat. I’d never heard that tone before and it demanded all my attention, “Now,” he stroked my cheek, “Are you going to be good and let me tell it, or do you want me to stop?”

I shook my head, entranced by the air of authority that Juno had somehow gathered around himself. He lifted his eyebrows, waiting for a response and I fidgeted slightly at the arousal that pooled hot between my hips, “I… I’ll be good.” I promised. I rarely, if ever, found myself in this sort of role but I felt as though I would follow Juno to the ends of the universe.

“Of course, you will,” Juno smiled broadly, and I felt a wash of pride in myself at his approval, “Because that’s another thing about Peter Nureyev,” I blushed at the way he said my name, like it was somehow more precious to him than it had ever been to me, “He’s so,  _ so _ good.”

“Juno—” I tried to disagree.

“You are,” he insisted, his hand petting through my hair again before trailing slow and sweet down my arm, along my side and my chest, “You have been patient and generous and  _ good _ . Giving me a place to stay, helping with that nightmare, and that stupid  _ glass _ elevator, and stepping in to help with… at the mortuary,” my hand curled around his waist when I heard the falter in his voice, “When I told you about Verdrücken, you immediately wanted to help. You… wanted to help everyone on Brahma, you…” Juno pressed his forehead to mine, “You are so good, Peter Nureyev.”

“Juno,” I gasped against his mouth before our lips met. His kiss was intent on convincing me of his words, his tongue sliding against mine like a promise. I wanted to believe him… I wanted  _ him.  _ Our bodies pressed together as the kiss deepened and I could feel his rising arousal pressed against my stomach, “ _ Oh, Juno. _ ” I sighed again as we parted.

“You’re so good,” Juno purred against my cheek, and I could hear the roughness of desire in his voice as his strong arms drew me flush against him. His hands glided possessively over my back and my sides, “You amaze me.”

My leg slid between his and I regretted having dressed, wishing I could feel his skin against mine, “You amaze  _ me, _ ” I told him as I sought friction by rutting against his thigh, “You’re like no one I’ve ever encountered, Juno, it’s remarkable.”

Juno’s mouth trailed a hot path down the side of my neck, “Nureyev,” he growled against me and I was absolutely certain my name had never sounded better. I was reminded viscerally of how that very fantasy — my name on his tongue in the throes of pleasure — had surprised me when we’d been looking at the apartment in Verdrücken’s building. It sounded so much sweeter than I ever could have imagined.

“Say it again.” I said, and it was more command than plea.

If Juno minded me flipping the script, he gave no indication. In fact, his response betrayed quite the opposite, “ _ Nureyev _ ,” he moaned, breath hot against my jaw as he melted against me. My hand left the small of his back in favor of his ass, squeezing the delicious flesh and guiding our hips together, “Peter, oh, Nureyev, yes.”

I laughed breathlessly into his curls as his hardening cock rubbed against mine, “Yes,” I agreed, “Goodness,  _ yes _ .” 

Juno’s voice was rough and somewhat small as a question slipped from his mouth, “Did you really fantasize about me?”

I gave a strangled chuckle as we grinded against each other, the fabric of my pants all that divided us, “I told no lies yesterday, Juno, same as you.”

“ _ Fuck _ , Nureyev,” Juno swore and scraped his teeth against the skin behind my ear and I gasped, “W-well, I’m not really up for getting back in handcuffs yet,” he said and leaned back to meet my eyes, his pupils dilated with hunger, “But I don’t need ‘em. I mean, I, I’m, uh, a-at your mercy or whatever the fuck you—”

I kissed him fiercely and rolled him onto his back, pushing him flat against the mattress, “You’re a dream, Juno,” I praised against his lips, “A reverie made real.”

Juno snickered slightly, “The way you talk is so dumb and I love it.”

I grinned and kissed him hard, but my curiosity got the better of me and I pulled back to say, “It seemed like you wanted me to be the one at your mercy there for a moment, is that something you’re interested in?”

“Well, yeah,” Juno said, nipping at my lower lip, “Anyone in their right mind would look at you and want you at their mercy,” he smirked, completely confident in that assertion, “And it was cute how much you wanted to obey me.”

“And right now?” I asked, holding off on ravishing him to be sure, “Who do you suppose ought to be obeying whom right now?”

“I don’t really give a shit,” Juno said, “As long as you don’t make me wait.” I raised an eyebrow, “You, I, I mean, I. I mean  _ me _ ,” Juno stammered out, pinned by my gaze, “I should be obeying you right now. Sounds like that’s what we’ve both been getting off to for months, so let’s do th-that.”

To be utterly transparent, there was no permutation of making love to Juno Steel that I wouldn’t have welcomed at that moment, but there was no denying the thrill of being offered exactly what I wanted, all wrapped up in a bow. Or, well, perhaps not a bow, though the robe he wore had slipped off him enough by that point that it might as well have been no more than a ribbon. I plucked at the waist tie and the satin parted, and all of Juno’s skin was mine to touch and see.

“N-no fair,” he complained as his stomach quivered slightly under my light caress, “You have way too many clothes on, Peter Nureyev.”

I smirked at his snarky use of my name, and pointed out haughtily, “I believe we just decided that I’m the one in a position to make demands at present,” But all the same, I stood and quickly shed my clothes. I was as eager to have them gone as Juno was. I took the opportunity to retrieve a strap and lube from my bedside table, luxuriating in the intensity of Juno’s gaze on me as I buckled the harness with nimble fingers. I was practically dripping already and I sighed as the base slid easily into place, and Juno swore under his breath. I let my eyes slide back to him as I secured the strap, hissing as it pressed snug against the hardness of my dick. He was watching me, as I knew he had been, expression slightly glazed as one hand stroked himself. It was a breathtaking view, but I was ready to do more than  _ look _ at the lady, “Speaking of making demands,” I said, “Roll over for me, Juno. Onto your hands and knees, please.”

Juno did so with astonishing speed, casting aside the satin robe in the process, “ _ Please _ tell me this means you’re going to fuck me.” he said, voice rough.

I chuckled at his directness, “Well deduced, detective,” I teased, stroking a hand down the enticing curve of Juno’s back. There were scars I wanted to know the stories behind, but now was not the time to ask. Now was the time to explore. I mapped the gorgeous skin spread out before me, noting every scar and freckle and ticklish spot, every sigh and gasp and giggle. It was like memorizing the schematics of a building for a heist, and when Juno groaned and arched his back, shamelessly pushing his bottom towards me, I smirked to myself. What I was going to reach in and pluck from Juno would be the most precious thing I could ever steal. All the jewels in the universe, all the weapons and reactors ever made, could not compete with Juno Steel’s ecstasy, with his fierce spirit, with his mad and marvelous decision to place his trust  _ in me _ .

“ _ Peter, _ ” he growled into the pillow, “ _ Get on with it! _ ”

“Yes, I think I will,” I said, slicking my fingers with lube and making him shudder as I ghosted a touch over the sensitive skin of his balls, “You’ve waited long enough to be worshipped, haven’t you, my goddess?”

“You’re out of your— _ ohh!  _ ” As much as I loved listening to Juno talk, loved his coarseness and his cleverness and his straightforwardness, there was a bone-deep satisfaction in silencing him with a touch. My first finger had breached him with ease and I moved it inside him, marveling at the soft heat around me, at the way the muscles fluttered in perfect synchronization with his soft moan. 

I kissed the round swell of one buttock as I slowly added a second finger, Juno’s answering groan like heavenly music to my ears, “Incredible, Juno,” I murmured against the heat of his skin, watching my fingers disappear inside him, “Just look at how well you take what I give you.”

“ _ Peter _ ,” Juno gritted out, pressing back onto my fingers, “More,  _ please _ , I can take  _ more. _ ”

“Mmm,” I hummed, twisting and scissoring my fingers in his accommodating hole, “And you’re going to, my love.”

Juno’s whining hitched with a squeak, and my own heart skipped. The word ‘love’ had slipped out so naturally, I hadn’t even thought about it. I was about to ask if it was a problem when a swivel of my fingers elicited another squeak and Juno hissed out, “ _ Fuck _ , right there!” Relief, and a small measure of disappointment that I tucked away to examine later. I twisted my fingers again, curling them against ‘right there’, and Juno slipped down from his hands to his elbows, moaning into the pillow beautifully.

“Oh, Juno, that’s it,” I coaxed, head swimming with how lucky I was to see him like this, to make him feel such pleasure. I circled my fingertips against that fantastic little bundle of nerves and watched beads of sweat catch the morning light like diamonds on his back, “That’s it, my goddess.”

“ _ More _ , Peter, please,  _ please, _ ” Juno’s voice was muffled slightly in the fabric, his hips gyrating in a hypnotic search for  _ more _ sensation as I fingered him. I kept on for long, sweet minutes, telling him how he amazed me as I watched his skin glow and glitter with heat; watched his hands clench and open in my silk sheets; watched his ass open up for me like a flower; watched his cock sway beneath him, swollen and dripping and begging to be touched. When I pressed a third finger into him and was met with no resistance, only the sound of his needy moans, I could deny neither of us any longer. I withdrew my hand and Juno  _ sobbed _ , his body shuddering visibly with the loss, “ _ No, no, Peter, _ ” he blubbered, “ _ Don’t stop, _ I’m sorry, just, just, _ need you _ , Peter, fuck,  _ Nureyev _ ,  _ please! _ ”

My clean hand stroked over his back as the other spread lube over my strap, “Hush, my sweet Juno,” I soothed, my own voice strangled slightly by impatience, “You’ve done so splendidly for me. So beautiful, my love.” he whimpered, arching his back when he felt the tip of me nudge his thoroughly prepared entrance. I covered his hand with one of mine as I guided myself into him, and our fingers tangled tightly.

It was like nothing else. I sank into him, moaning at the way my strap rubbed and filled me as I bottomed out. I kissed and licked along his shoulder, tasting the salt-sweat on his skin as I gave him a moment to adjust. When he squirmed, his ass thrusting back slightly against me, I drew out and thrust back into him. Our voices moaned in harmony and I could hold back no longer, any farce of command dissolving into pure need as we moved as one. It was like losing my balance and discovering with delight that I could fly in place of falling. I was not in control, and I did not need to be, and it was euphoria itself.

“Peter, I,” Juno gasped out brokenly, and I didn’t know how long it had been, the time a sweet, stretched blur of pleasure and heat. From the burning in my thighs, I could tell that time had continued to elapse whether I had kept tracking its passing or not. 

I stroked his hair back, mouthing at his neck and murmuring against his ear, “What is it, love? What, do you need?” my voice trembled slightly with the nearness of my orgasm, with the rhythm of my hips driving into his again and again.

“I’m, I’m,” Juno keened, “I need you to touch me, please,  _ please.” _

Surely no one in all of human history had ever begged as beautifully as my Juno, “Yes, yes, love,” rather than simply reach under him, I looped an arm around his waist and pulled us upright. Juno cried out as the angle of my thrusts changed as we balanced on our knees, my arm holding his back flush to my chest. I looked over his shoulder as I gnawed on the sensitive flesh there, my head spinning at the view of Juno’s heaving chest and the way his cock jutted out from his body, purple with need and trailing precum, “So patient for me, my love,  _ so perfect, _ ” I praised, “You want me to touch you?”

“Please!” he whined.

My hand glided slowly in from his hip, “You want me to let you come?” I asked, voice low, my own climax gathering with hot tingling promise as I drove myself deep into him.

“ _ Please, please please!” _ Juno’s cock twitched and I watched it gush with desperation, and then my hand finally closed around it. Juno’s head fell back on my shoulder and he thrust into my hand, a slur of  _ pleasepleaseplease _ where his lips brushed my ear.

“Come for me, Juno, let me see.” I did not need to ask twice, he thrust into my hand only once more before his whole body tensed, his cock spasming in my palm as come erupted from him. A broken scream and he was dead weight in my arms. My movements faltered, his wellbeing more important a million times than the nearness of my own release, “Juno—?” I began to ask.

“Don’ stop,” Juno slurred, “Fuck me ‘til you come, Peter,  _ please. _ ”

I could not in any universe have declined a request such as that. Juno was heavy in my arms and I allowed him to slump back onto the bed as I did precisely as he asked. He gave soft whimpers and whines with every thrust and it wasn’t long before I was driving myself deep and crying out, arching over his back as I finally came. My nerves were still jittering with sparks as I slipped out of his body and slid to his side, our bodies curling towards each other like parentheses around the mingling of our labored breath.


	14. Juno Steel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TWs for this chapter:  
> eensy bit of sub drop for Juno   
> brief discussion of depression  
> discussion of death, grief, a missing person

Peter was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. He was strong and perfect. The flush of his cheeks spread down his fair chest, which rose and fell deeply as his breath got back to its normal rhythm. I wanted him to hold me. I felt sated, but raw, opened up and vulnerable, a little like I had felt with Verdrücken’s handcuffs working on us. I wanted to  _ ask _ him to hold me,  _ but what if he said no? _

“Juno?” Peter asked, as if he could hear the distress in that thought. He peeked one eye open, “Are you alright, love?”

I nodded adamantly, hoping my head moved fast enough that he would not be able to detect any dampness in my eyes, “Yep. I’m, great.”

Peter’s brows knitted together and he tutted, and miraculously opened his arms to me, “Come here, will you?” I didn’t hesitate, burrowing my face against his sternum. When his arms wrapped around me, I sagged against him with a big sigh, “That was wonderful, love,” he said softly, stroking my hair and my back, “You were perfection, better than I ever could have fantasized.”

A small sound of pleasure escaped me without my permission, “Really?” I asked, keeping my face pressed against him as if my insecurity would be any less blatant if only I could hide my face.

“Really,” he assured, and kissed my forehead, “I… am sorry if it was overwhelming.”

“No!” I insisted at once, pulling back to meet his eyes, “I mean, it  _ was _ , but it was good!”

“Good?” Peter asked, one corner of his lips twitching slyly.

“ _ Splendid, _ ” I said, in an emulation of his baritone, “Utterly sublime, my dear detective.” He laughed, the sound full and rich and magical, so much better than all of his fake charming laughs, the smile on his face more beautiful than any mask. I kissed him, quick and off-center, my lips half landing on his teeth. It was perfect, and when Peter’s hand guided my jaw and deepened it into a proper kiss, it was even better than perfect..

“You’re alright, truly?” he asked when we parted.

I nodded, “Yeah,” I said, “Just… was a little, I dunno, squishy.”

Peter looked like he wanted to laugh at the choice of word, but he nodded, “I see.” he said. 

“Was intense.” I said, by way of explanation.

“It was.” He agreed and I saw a subtle sadness settle into his features, “I… we had to make it count, though, I suppose.”

I frowned, grasping the source of his sorrow a second later, “You still think I’m gonna leave.” I said.

Peter Nureyev shrugged one bare, elegant shoulder and looked away from me. I watched his tense profile as he said, “I would not presume to be reason enough to keep you here on Mars, Juno.” he glanced back at me, “I… want you to be happy.”

“That’s… kind of a tall order, Nureyev,” I said, and he didn’t flinch at the sound of his name, but he did frown.

“Yes,” he observed slowly, “You have rather the melancholic streak, don’t you?”

“That’s a pretty way to put it,” I scoffed, “But yeah. I… can’t promise ‘happy’, but I don’t think there’s much chance of it if I run away from this again. It made me miserable last time.”

“You…” Peter cleared his throat and offered me a fragile smile, “It may be redundant for me to say this, but you are welcome to stay here with me for as long as you like,” he brushed my hair back from my brow, “I love having you here.”

My eyes prickled. I still felt raw and sensitive — squishy — and I wasn’t even sure if I wanted the feeling to go away. It was nice in a way, just like it had been nice to be unable to speak anything but the truth the day before. Sort of liberating. Sex with Peter apparently intensified my every feeling, physical and emotional alike, which was strange compared to how numb I was accustomed to being, “That’s, uh, good to know.”

“So… where do we go from here?” Peter asked me, and geez. That was really the billion cred question, wasn’t it? There was no way I was leaving Mars alone. I’d liked to have left  _ with _ Peter, but his reluctance was valid. Besides which, it was probably more responsible or whatever, to get to know each other with solid ground beneath our feet. I didn’t know what it would look like if I stayed, maybe it would burn itself out in a matter of weeks. I had no answers for him.

So, I gave a literal answer instead, one that neglected all of the unknowns that hung between us, “I have to go to that Green Pastures place today. To pick up… ya know.”

Peter’s expression softened and he nodded, “Okay,” he said, “How about a shower before we head over?”

My nose wrinkled as I looked down at the mess along our skin, “Sounds absolutely necessary.”

It was a couple more minutes before we found the confidence in our legs that was needed to get out of the bed. In an impressive display of dexterity and multi-tasking, Peter removed his strap  _ as _ we walked to the washroom. I turned on the shower while he washed it in the sink, and there was an odd comfort to it, to quietly coexisting. I stepped into the shower and Peter was only a couple of steps behind. We wrapped our arms around each other in the stream of the hot water and each of us sighed, mine turning into a chuckle. Peter made a questioning sound and I tried to put my thoughts into words, “It’s weird,” I said, “How nice and easy this is. I… I keep waiting for it to be a problem that we don’t know each other all that well, for the other shoe to drop, but it’s just…” I pulled him closer and kissed his cheek, “Good.”

I could feel his smile against my face, “It is,” he said wistfully, “I feel much the same way. I’m… glad, though. That it’s good.”

A companionable silence fell between us. Peter squirted a dollop of shampoo into his palm, lifted my hand and did the same. I was about to begin lathering my own hair, but Peter’s hands got there first. I followed his lead, carefully washing his hair as he washed mine. It was relaxing, not only the gentle way his fingers scraped over my scalp, but to take care of him, to feel the silkiness of his hair, to gently make it clean.

“You know, Juno,” Peter said, while my eyes were closed and his hands carefully rinsed the bubbles from my head, “You know me better than anyone in the galaxy.”

“Oh,” I said. It dawned on me as the last of my shampoo washed away, “I guess… well, same for me.”

“In that case, it’s curious that you believe we don’t know each other all that well,” I watched as Nureyev tilted his head back to rinse his own hair, foamy water gliding down the graceful lines of his neck in rivulets. The bruises I’d left there were dark against his fair skin and the white soap bubbles, and the sight of them made me want to make more. He opened his eyes and looked down at me, “Though I confess a desire to know you better still.”

“Me too,” I said, the question rising inanely to my lips, “What’s your favorite color?”

Nureyev beamed, “Carmine.” he responded, as if that was how people typically answered that question. I was pretty sure it meant ‘red’, “And yours?” he asked, hands gliding over my shoulder under the guise of rinsing away soap.

The answer was purple, but that sounded so ordinary after freaking ‘ _carmine_ ’, “Um, violet.” I said, and wrapped my arms back around his slender waist.

“Mm,” he hummed, mouth against my temple, “A royal selection, as befits the queen of goddesses.”

I had to laugh at that, but he only furrowed his brow, “You’re so… you’re just…” I gave up on words and tilted my head up to meet his lips again instead.

We kissed until the water ran cold, and then we shut it off and stood there and kissed a while longer. It was chilly, with the water dripping off of us and the steam dissipating, but it didn’t matter. All the warmth I could want seemed to live in Peter Nureyev’s mouth and beat in Peter Nureyev’s chest. But when he shivered, I had to break the kiss, reaching out to grab us towels. We dried each other off and it was… sweet. Unbearably sweet. No one had ever taken such tender care with me and I didn’t entirely know what to do with it, except to offer the same back to him and hope I didn't mess it up. 

Once dry, Peter began to dress, but I hesitated. I really wanted to slip into something soft (and easy to slip back out of) and crawl back into bed with him. As he was adjusting the waist tie of the silky wrap blouse he had selected from his overflowing closet, Peter noticed I still had gotten no further than pulling on clean boxers, “Juno?” he asked. I lifted my head and our eyes met, and whatever he saw in my expression made his eyes soften and he strode over to me, “How about I help you decide what to wear?” he offered.

“Okay, sure.” I said, “You always look… good.”

“I try,” Peter said, with a small appreciative smile as he turned his attention to my relatively small and unimpressive wardrobe. His pointed canines tugged at his lip for a few seconds and then his clever hands selected a pair of black trousers and gave them to me, “Put these on.” he said and disappeared back into his closet. I didn’t bother questioning it; it was easy to take orders from Peter Nureyev. Easy and weirdly comforting. I was zipping the fly when he returned, with something soft and purple draped over his arm, “It’s more of an orchid shade than a violet, I’m afraid, but it should be no less fetching on you.” 

He pressed the garment into my hands and I was surprised by how incredibly soft it was. I’d never felt fabric like it. I held it out in front of me, identifying it as an oversized sweater. I pulled it on over my head, the plush weave and the spice-sweet smell of him enveloping me. It fit me well, with just a little bit of room, and I looked at him as I plucked at the folds, “This thing must be massive on you.”

Peter was smiling at me with a bit of a dreamy look in his eyes, “It suits you, my dear.” he said.

I grinned and closed the distance between us, “If I didn’t know better, Nureyev, I’d say you had a thing for seeing me in your clothes.”

Peter mirrored my smile and shrugged one shoulder, “I won’t deny there is a certain satisfaction to it,” he said, one hand appreciatively rubbing over my sweater-encased arm, “Seeing you all wrapped up in what’s mine.” He gave my arm a steadying squeeze and said regretfully, “Now, I believe we best get going?”

I sucked in a deep breath and nodded. I did  _ not _ want to go back to  _ that place _ , but at least I had Peter with me. He had proven himself adept in this kind of situation, and even if I got all weird and nonverbal again, I knew he had my back. We held hands but did not converse as we made the short walk there. When I saw that yellow and green sign, my feet wanted to stop, but I dragged them onward, until Peter Nureyev and I had crossed the threshold hand-in-hand.

The place wasn’t different inside, all the misleadingly inviting classic decor was the same, the coffins I could glimpse in the showroom were the same. But this time, we were not the only customers present, and that made itself instantly apparent in the form of a shrill and frantic voice, “— _ bullshit _ , is what it is! That is  _ not _ my fucking brother, and if you try to tell me  _ one more time— _ ”

“Mx Bombyx, please,” the same man who had helped us on our previous visit said, trying in vain to talk the person down, “We know this is a very difficult—”

“Oh, shut your trap about  _ difficult!  _ ” they shouted him down, “Luna has  _ always _ been difficult, this is just another of his stunts!”

“But your brother’s body is—”

“Oh, that body is  _ real _ ,” they snarled, “But it’s not my fucking brother!” they turned to storm out of the building, and only then seemed to realize that they had attracted an audience, “What the hell are you looking at?”

Before we could respond, the man they had been arguing with seemed to recognize, “Ah, Misters Steel, good morning, I will go collect your family for you.” I wrinkled my nose, there was really no way to talk about this stuff.

Once he’d left the room, the irate customer heaved a sigh, “I’m sorry for snapping at you,” they said, “I should have realized you wouldn’t be here unless you had lost someone.”

“Yeah, my… my twin brother.” I said, and Peter squeezed my hand.

“Oh,” they frowned, “I… I’m sorry. That’s… I’m a twin, too, I can’t even imagine…” Nureyev and I exchanged a glance. We’d overheard enough of the argument to suspect that this person was pretty damn deep in denial, “You must think I’m insane,” they said, “But it’s really not him.”

“Forgive me if I am prying into private matters,” Peter said, politely ignoring that our counterpart had been  _ screaming _ about those ‘private matters’ when we walked in, “But how can you be so sure that the deceased is not your brother?”

“It might look like him to a stranger,” they seethed, “But I’m his  _ twin _ . I’d recognize Luna and I can tell a fake when I see one. Especially considering whoever is behind this seriously did not do their research, it was all over the tabloids when Luna got his cybernetic hand but whoever they’ve got back that has _both_ his organic hands!”

So, maybe this wasn’t just a case of denial. Then another realization struck me, some gossip I had only half-listened to when Benten had told me about it, “Wait,” I said, “You’re… Celeste Bombyx, aren’t you? Your mother is Charmeuse Bombyx, the designer?”

They straightened their back, obviously pleased at being recognized, “I am,” they said, “And my brother is worth a few million creds at least, which I have to assume has something to do with the John Doe in there with his name tied to his toe.”

I turned to Peter, ready to ask him if he thought there was a case here, but was distracted by the baffled look on his face, “What?” I demanded.

“I… forgive me, Juno, you are simply full of surprises,” he said, with a lopsided smile, “I would not have presumed that you even knew the name Charmeuse Bombyx.”

Celeste scoffed, “ _ Everyone _ knows the name Charmeuse Bombyx.”

“I grew up on Mars, P—  _ Cupid _ ,” I pointed out, remembering myself just in time to wield what had to be Peter’s most foolish alias, “Even in the slums, it’s kinda a household name.”

“Right, of course,” Peter said. I raised an eyebrow at him, and he nodded.

I turned back to Celeste, “As it so happens, Mx Bombyx,” I said, “My associate and I are private investigators. We might be able to help.”

“Really?” Celeste’s eyes shone with hope, and I deeply understood just how much she wanted her brother back, “Do you think you could?”

“It would be our pleasure,” Peter said smoothly, “If what you’re looking for is the truth, well,” he glanced at me meaningfully, “That happens to be a specialty of ours.”

He was something else.

Celeste thanked us lavishly and gave us her contact information, hurrying off to tell her (very famous and very rich) mother everything that had occurred. As the door to the street shut behind her, the man emerged again from a back room with a discreet bag in hand. His eyes scanned the room and his relief was apparent when he realized that Celeste had gone. He crossed the lobby to Peter and I, handing me the bag. I took it numbly, surprised by how  _ light _ it was. Two of the most important people I’d ever known, and they weighed less than a dozen cans of beer now.

Only when Peter was steering me out the door and onto the sidewalk did I realize that I had zoned out again, “Ugh,  _ sorry _ ,” I said, “I didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t, Juno,” he said, pulling me into a hug that served to ground me again and take some of the crushing weight from my chest, “Don’t apologize.”

I hugged him back with my free arm wrapped around his waist, “Thank you.” I said instead.

“You’re welcome, Juno.” He said and kissed my forehead tenderly, “Now,” he leaned back so that we could look at each other, “If you don’t mind a change of topic,” I shook my head, indicating for him to go on, “If we’re going to work together, there are some things we ought to consider.”

“Such as?” I prompted.

“Oh, a great many things,” he rattled off, “How to keep our aliases consistent, how or if we need to make any adjustments to the contract I usually use with clients,” he cocked his head, “And I’ve been needing to hire a new secretary for a few weeks anyway, perhaps you could help me to select someone who  _ won’t _ quit after only a couple of months.”

“You actually  _ like _ the idea of working together.” I realized.

“Why wouldn’t I?” he said, “We already know we function well as a team.”

“When we’re not sidetracked by fighting or fucking, yeah.” I allowed.

“Well, going forward, hopefully the former might not be an issue.”

I smirked at him and raised an eyebrow, “But you’re not ruling out hooking up on the job?”

He only shrugged at that and I laughed. He took hold of my free hand and we started walking back to his place (our place?) and I thought about his questions. I wasn’t sure what to do about our aliases, and I’d have to look at his contract to see if there was anything I wanted to change or add. I’d never had a secretary before. It sounded very grown up. My thoughts strayed to the messiness of Peter’s coffee table, and I had to assume that his office was just as bad since he’d seemed damn reluctant to even take me there. I chuckled.

“Care to let me in on the joke, detective?” Peter asked.

“Just thinking how a secretary would definitely be better than leaving you in charge of organization.”

“You wound me, Juno.” Peter chastised, even though he was grinning.

“I’ll kiss it and make it better.” I flirted back and Peter’s grin turned into something soft and sappy and totally wonderful.

“Oh, Juno, my goddess,” he said, with that sincerity I was getting addicted to hearing in his voice, “You already have made everything better.”

I smiled at him. Grief weighed in my heart and in the hand that carried a bag from Greener Pastures Mortuary, the bleakness of depression niggled at the back of my mind ready to suck me back in, anxiety prickled at me, that working together could never work out in the long run. But Peter Nureyev’s hand held mine and his expression was so loving and honest and somehow that was easier to believe in, “You’ve made everything better, too.” I told him, and I meant it.


	15. Peter Nureyev - Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We made it to the end! 
> 
> TWs for epilogue:  
> restraints used in sexual play  
> praise kink  
> romantic blowjob

“You look utterly divine in handcuffs, my love,” I told him, rapturous at the sight of those wonderful wrists of his, so graceful in the cuffs that secured his to the headboard. They were not law enforcement grade, and they were not a dangerous experimental prototype. On the contrary, they were actually the sort _designed_ with the bedroom in mind, “I’ve always thought they suited you.”

“‘Course you did.” Juno quipped dryly, though his bright cheeks and heavy breathing gave him away.

“Whatever do you mean by that, my goddess?” I asked, one hand trailing from his capable, broad hands over the handcuffs that adorned his wrists, while the other stroked slowly over his desperately hard cock.

He whined inarticulately at the touch and the way he looked up at me,  _ mercy _ , those eyes alone were enough to keep me honest these days. “‘Cause you’ve got a filthy goddamn mind, Nureyev,” he accused correctly, with no sharpness to it, as my mouth traveled down his body, “F-figures you’d have gotten the —  _ oh! _ — l-lying thief in handcuffs and been distracted by thinking how  _ pretty _ he is!”

I tutted, kissing his hip, “Only when the thief in question was you, my sweet,” I assured him, “And you can hardly blame me when you looked just so,” I licked the crease of his thigh, “ _ So _ very pretty.”

“Who-who would have thought we’d wind up like this?” Juno asked breathlessly before dissolving into a moan as I licked a stripe up his length. I looked up at him and considered what he’d said. It was rather an unlikely series of events that had brought us from that first case with the collar to this; from the thief Fauna Lovejoy in handcuffs making my head spin with a kiss as she stole the collar from my pocket, to the new-minted private eye Juno Steel in handcuffs in  _ our _ bed. And of course, there were the handcuffs in between that had forced us to be honest with each other. It was such poetic irony that Marlena Verdrücken had no idea what a huge favor she had done us.

“Peter,  _ please _ ,” Juno was looking down at me, pupils blown and no doubt wishing I would stop teasing him, “Please, babe.”

I smiled.  _ ‘Babe _ ’. It had taken a few weeks, but as Juno and I relaxed into each other’s company, little endearments like that one had grown common. In bed at first, but gradually permeating normal conversation as well. I never tired of them. I loved them. I loved  _ him _ . I had not said so yet, but I was more sure of it every day. Every time we made love, every time we laughed, every time we made headway in a case. I fell a little more in love with Juno Steel every hour, every minute it seemed.

Normally, I would have teased him until he was near the verge of breaking, but suddenly that didn’t hold nearly as much appeal as giving him pleasure, pure and simple. I took him into my mouth to the root and he sighed. I relished the heat and musk of him, the weight of him on my tongue. I twisted my tongue around the head just the way he liked and took him deep and tight and moaned around him. He writhed so beautifully beneath me and it didn’t take long before he was close. I could tell from his breathing and his expression, the way his hands tugged against the restraint of the cuffs longing to bury his fingers in my hair. It was marvelous to discover that I was getting to know him so well that these signs were familiar.

He moaned out my name as he came, the salty bitterness of him flooding my mouth. I drank him down like ambrosia. When he squirmed with oversensitivity, I lifted my mouth from him and crawled up the bed to release him from the cuffs. I set them aside and rubbed his strong lined palms, his short dextrous fingers, his scarred knuckles, massaging the bloodflow back into them, “Mmmm, Peter…” he murmured in the foggy post-coital voice that I perhaps liked best of all.

“Yes, my love?” I kissed his palm.

“Will you hold me?” My heart swelled with affection in my chest. I did not hesitate to wrap him up in my arms, stroking his back soothingly.

“You did so well for me, my Juno,” I pressed kisses into his hair. I was deeply sated myself from the  _ three _ orgasms that Juno had wrung out of me before we had even thought to take out the handcuffs, “You never cease to impress me.” Juno hummed contentedly against my chest and we both melted into the comfort and satisfaction of our shared afterglow.

Until it was disrupted by the beeping of both of our comms in unison. Juno’s eyes met mine with a spark of fond humor; both of our comms going off at the same time lately meant one thing. I grabbed my comms and answered the call, “Yes, Rita?”

“Mistah Ransom!” the exuberant voice of our secretary greeted. I had learned quickly not to keep my comms too close to my ear or keep the volume setting too high, “Where’s Mistah Steel!?”

“Right here, Rita.” Juno said, not bothering to lift his head from my shoulder.

“You two sound awfully cozy but not for long!” Juno and I exchanged a glance at that vaguely threatening statement. Rita went on, “I just got off the comms with  _ Charmeuse Bombyx! _ ” her voice slid even higher into a starstruck squeal on the name, “Ya know, the super famous,  _ suuuuper _ fabulous lady whose missing son you found after he got mixed up with that whole ‘ _Fashion To Die For_ ’ show with the Kanagawas?”

“It seems to ring a bell, yes.” I said, and Juno rolled his eyes at me. It was hard to believe I had ever found investigating dull, when as it turned out all I had needed was the right partner at my side.

“Yeah, yeah, we know who you mean, Rita,” he said, “What did she want?”

“ _ Well _ , I was just  _ getting _ to that if you two chatterboxes would quit  _ interrupting _ so much!” I barely stifled a snort at that, but Rita went on undeterred, “Tonight is the super fancy Obleka Gala she throws every year, where all the who’s-whos do all their who-who-ing and what-have-you _whatever_ it is that who’s-whos do-do, I mean  _ do _ ,” Juno snickered against my skin, as Rita rambled on excitedly, “And it is just the swankiest,  _ sparkliest _ night of the year and only the swankiest,  _ sparkliest _ people get invited to go and it’s all  _ so pretty! _ Only Madame Bombyx got this spoooky letter just now and she’s real worried that someone is gonna try and mess up her big night and anyways since she was real impressed with how you brought Mistah Luna back to life—”

“Luna wasn’t actually  _ dead, _ Rita,” Juno pointed out, “He was kidnapped.”

“That don’t matter, Mistah Steel!” Rita gave a frustrated squeal, “Do you even realize what this  _ means _ ?”

“With Madame Bombyx's deep pockets, we may turn a pretty profit this month?” I asked airily, unable to resist winding the charmingly excitable woman up a bit.

She growled furiously, “ _ NO _ , Mistah Ransom, well,  _ YES _ , Mistah Ransom, but that don’t matter! What  _ matters _ is you just got invited to the sparkliest, swankiest, sensational-est party this side of Jupiter and you boys gotta get outta bed  _ right now _ ,” Juno and I stiffened slightly at her awareness of our present position, though, to be honest, it was rather a safe guess as to where to find us these days, “And put on the  _ prettiest, sparkliest, swankiest, most beautiful-est _ dresses you got and get your mystery-solvin' butts to the one and only Obleka Gala!” 

"Our _butts_ don't solve mysteries, Rita," Juno pointed out, "That's just silly."

“Oh, Rita,” I said, rolling my eyes at Juno and pretending like I had only just gleaned Rita's meaning, “ _Now_ you’re speaking my language, darling. What do you say, Detective Steel,” I arched an eyebrow, “How about putting on your swankiest, sparkliest dancing shoes for me?”

A flicker of something sad crossed Juno’s features, and I knew he was thinking of his brother. I squeezed him to me and it gave way to a sweet, sad smile, “Yeah,” he said, “Okay, tell her we’ll be there, Rita.”

“I’m on it, boss!” The comms beeped as the call ended.

“Are you sure you want to, love?” I asked gently, caressing his cheek. I knew dancing could be a tender spot for my lady.

“Yeah,” Juno leaned into my touch and kissed the inside of my wrist. He chuckled, “Ben always told me I should dance more and he’d be  _ pissed  _ if I blew off an invite to the Obleka Gala.”

“It is rather exclusive,” I said, sitting up, “And I hear it’s both swanky  _ and _ sparkly.”

“Well, in that case,” Juno climbed out of the bed and I watched his back and ass appreciatively as he walked towards our closet, “We’d better find something suitably sparkly to wear.”

“Quite right, detective,” I agreed, strolling after him and draping myself across his back, arms slung around his shoulders, adding dubiously, “Though nothing on Mars could possibly shine as bright as you.”

He snorted and kissed my arm, “You’re a fool.” he said as he began rifling through our combined wardrobe.  _ I love you _ , his tone said without using the words for it. I didn’t need to ask, I didn’t need to force it. I trusted him to say it when he was ready to, or to never say it but to continue showing me in a million other dazzling ways.

For now, we would do our job and we would sparkle and we would dance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you have it, my overly convoluted first Penumbra fic! Thank you so much to everyone for reading and extra thanks to everyone who has taken the time to leave kudos and comments, I legit cherish them 💕
> 
> If you wanna keep up with my Penumbra stuff or say hi, I'm at pippalovestunabrick . tumblr and I'm dearly in need of some TPP frens!


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